


From What Seemed Like A Ruin

by alby_mangroves, rohkeutta



Series: what seemed like a ruin [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Art, Bearded Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Character Study, Drawing, Falconry, Goshawks, Illustrated, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Sam Wilson, POV Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-18 04:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12380787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta
Summary: When Barnes stumbles into a small town in Maine at summer's end, he's been running a long time and doesn't expect to stay. But as weeks pass, he starts wondering whether all this time he hasn't been running away from, buttowardssomething - the kindness of strangers, quiet fields, and a curious, yellow-eyed goshawk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A collaboration for Marvel Bang 2017 by [alby_mangroves](http://artgroves.tumblr.com/) (art and beta) and [rohkeutta](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com/) (writing).
> 
> This has been heavily inspired by H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. I don't have any experience on falconry myself and therefore depending on research, but holler if you see something amiss and I'll correct.
> 
> Big hugs from Roh to Fox for endless patience and test reading, to Helene and Gerry for cheering, and most of all to Alby for being INCREDIBLE. Title comes from Pink Rabbits by The National.

 

It's raining in Maine.

Everything is dripping: the trees, the porch railings, the roofs, the resilient dogs trotting in front of their owners on the main street. It’s a small town, not even on the seaside, and most of the residents are old, harmless. The man (maybe) named Barnes assesses them from inside the only café in town. He’s dripping, too, and so is his backpack, but the café owner waved him in anyway when he was hesitating at the door, soaked to the bone.

There’s a large, coarse towel on his shoulders and his shoes are drying next to the radiator, and Barnes is sipping what seems to be the best coffee he has ever drunk.

“What rotten weather,” the café owner says as he puts a huge sandwich in front of Barnes. “But that’s New England for you. Where you from, son?”

Barnes inspects the sandwich. Tomatoes, basil, white cheese he thinks might be mozzarella; hand-cut and precisely arranged between two halves of a bread roll. He might have eaten something like this three weeks ago in Switzerland; he’s not sure. Two months ago he would’ve been too paranoid to eat anything that didn’t come out of an unsealed can. Now he’s too tired and hungry to care.

“New York,” he says after a beat. His voice is scratchy, unused, and he realizes how long it’s taken him to answer. “Sorry.”

“City boy, huh,” the owner says, his expression inscrutable. Barnes fears that the man looks at him and sees something messy and ugly inside that’s barely contained, clawing to be let out, instead of a man who’s already conquered something.

Barnes nods silently, poking at the mozzarella slice that’s trying to slide out of the sandwich with his fingertip. The keeper pats the table with his palm, and Barnes feels grateful that the man didn’t try to touch him, lay that well-meaning hand on the hard metal of Barnes’s shoulder. “Eat your sandwich, son. You look like you need it.”

Barnes eats. It’s delicious, and his socks are starting to dry, his legs curled under him. The rain is a steady hum against the tin roof of the porch, and for the first time since his escape, he feels momentarily safe. It’s early September, and the man called Barnes has been on the run for four months.

When he’s finished eating and is sitting there, still cradling the empty cup of coffee, the café keeper comes over again, holding the coffee pot. “More coffee, son?”

Barnes nods, pushes the mug closer to the edge of the table. “Please,” he says, roughly.

“I’m Matthew Burr,” the keeper says conversationally as he pours. Barnes looks up from the hot, aromatic coffee, and assesses him again: an old man, in good shape which likely makes him appear younger.

“Jamie,” Barnes says, because that’s clearly what Matthew is waiting for. “Jamie Nolan.”

There was a Nolan living in their building when Barnes was young: all Barnes remembers is a fair-haired man who used to sing _Molly Malone_ softly under the window when he came home late at night. Absurdly enough, _Molly Malone_ was one of the first things that came back to Barnes: a broken, faltering melody he found himself humming into the darkness under a highway overpass. He was shivering, dressed only in a pair of dirty, damp combat trousers and an undershirt after peeling off the drying body armor. His right shoulder was aching from resetting it; his head felt like pushing a hand into a nettle bush to try to find something he lost in it.

He was cold, and he was alone and scared, and that’s when the melody came to him, settled down on his tongue, and asked for company.

He sang, then, sitting under the bridge with his head on his knees, his voice rusty and halting, more mumbling than actual singing. _But her ghost wheels her barrow, through streets broad and narrow, crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O._

When the man he bought the fake I.D. from asked for a name, he’d said Nolan. Jamie was just an afterthought, something that was far enough from the man he might’ve once been, but close enough to keep the suggestion of it.

“Jamie,” Matthew says, smiling, and Barnes snaps back to Maine, back into the café. The coffee mug is scalding against his bare palm. “Heard somebody helped Franklin Todd paint his fence a couple of days ago. That you?”

Barnes nods, mutely. He’s been around for three days, now: sleeping in the small patch of forest just outside town, huddled under a tree with his foam camping mat and sleeping bag. It’s not the first time he’s been to the café either, but the previous morning he’d just come in for a short while to buy a hot coffee and warm himself up a bit before skulking off to deal with the sound of nails scraping against a chalkboard in his head. It had been a bad day, not like the day before when he’d hesitantly stopped to ask if the man painting his fence, swearing profusely, needed help.

Turned out that Franklin Todd had a bad back, a good-for-nothing son, and was very desperate. It had also turned out that Barnes was extremely fast and good at painting fences when given the chance, and he’d gotten three sandwiches for lunch for his trouble.

“It’s a good town,” Matthew says. “Nothing much happens here, but if you’re looking for that, you’re in the right place.”

Barnes had never thought about where to stop; had figured that an opportunity would arise sooner or later. He had just wanted to get up north, away from Boston; had taken the Greyhound as far as Bangor and hitchhiked after that. Personally, Barnes wouldn’t have picked up a guy looking like him - with his shaggy hair, haunted eyes and four days of stubble he looks like an addict or a criminal. But at least three people in Maine didn’t seem to have any reservations about sullen men hitchhiking on the side of the highway, and gave him a ride.

Barnes nods, and Matthew goes back to the counter, starts wiping the cabinets while whistling softly. It’s a nice melody; unfamiliar, but reminding Barnes of dark autumn evenings, the smell of rain and soil. Barnes turns towards the window again, watching the deserted street and the glow of the lights inside the grocery store opposite the café. He can feel Matthew’s gaze lingering on the side of his head and instinctively hunches deeper into himself, hides his face with the coffee mug. He’s filthy and tired from sleeping fitfully outside for several nights; almost shameful for coming to track dirt and mud all over Matthew’s clean floors.

The old clock ticks steadily away on the far wall of the room, and Barnes breathes in the steam, closes his eyes for a moment. He will-- do something. Move on. Find a place to stay. Figure out when it’s time to stop running.

“How old are you, Jamie?” Matthew asks out of nowhere, and Barnes opens his eyes again, glancing at him. Matthew’s arranging small pies on a plate on the counter with a pair of tongs. Barnes isn’t proud of the speed with which he calculates the usefulness of the tongs as a weapon.

Barnes puts the coffee down and wets his lower lip, hesitating. He’s not sure, and isn’t that a kick in the head - according to the museum he’s almost a hundred years old; he was a week shy of twenty-eight when he ‘died’, and he has no idea what the periods out of cryofreeze since then add up to. Years are muddled together in a mess where it’s hard to say if he was awake for three days or three months.

“Thirty,” he says, because it’s a safe assumption and matches his looks. “My birthday was in March.”

“Belated congratulations,” Matthew says, smiling at him. “Did you have a thirties crisis? Feel like life is slipping between your fingers?”

Barnes snorts before he can stop himself. “No,” he says, looking down at his gloved prosthetic hand that’s resting on the table, curls his fingers loosely. His voice is softer when he continues, “I feel like I’ve just started to live again.”

Matthew makes a sympathetic sound, and then they’re quiet again.

Barnes ends up staying for over two hours: he pulls a thick second-hand paperback from his backpack and starts reading, glad to be out of the steadily pouring rain. Matthew doesn’t seem to mind: he offers refills a couple of times, takes Barnes’s damply drooping five-dollar bill when he orders another sandwich, and sits behind the counter doing crossword puzzles. The café is empty, Barnes being the only customer: it’s past lunch hour, and the awful weather is keeping people indoors.

Barnes has eaten his second sandwich and is two hundred pages into _The Sword in the Stone_ when Matthew comes over to collect his empty plate and sweep the crumbs from the table.

“Doesn’t look like the rain is easing up,” Matthew notes. “Got any plans?”

Barnes shrugs. “Not really.”

Matthew looks like he’s mulling something over, weighing the sandwich crumbs in his left hand and the plate in his right. “Are you looking for work?” he asks. “Sticking around?”

Barnes lifts his metal shoulder. “Yeah, if I can find something,” he says, hesitantly. “I’m not good for much. Manual labor, mostly.”

“Hm,” Matthew says, pursing his mouth. “It’s the fall, so there should be all sorts of work available since it’s harvest time, and people are preparing for the winter.”

Barnes nods, rubs the cover of the paperback with his thumb. He should probably confess that he doesn’t have a place to stay, but what Matthew would do with that information, anyway? There are worse things Barnes has done and endured than sleeping in forests or under bridges, no matter how uncomfortable it gets.

“Listen, Jamie,” Matthew says then, slowly. “I have a spare room upstairs.”

Barnes waits, silently.

“It’s not much, I haven’t rented it out in a long time, but it has a bathroom and a hot plate, and I can get you some fresh sheets and a towel. You’re welcome to sleep there, if you want.”

Barnes blinks, speechless, his hands frozen around the book. Nobody has been this kind to him in a long, long time. Involuntarily, his brain cycles through at least three increasingly fucked-up scenarios where this could go, but he grits his teeth and forces the ominous thoughts away. He could stay for a while. It seems like a good town.

“Thank you,” he says awkwardly when he finds his voice again. “How much do I owe you?”

He has absurd amounts of money: all stolen from HYDRA safe houses or earned along the way, tucked away in his clothing and backpack. It’s more money than he’s seen in his whole life, and he doesn’t know what to do with it except pay for bare necessities, trying to keep his head down.

But Matthew waves his hand dismissively. “Let’s talk about that later. I could use some help in the café, though, if you’re up for it. Any onion I don’t have to cut by myself is like ten bucks in the bank.”

The room indeed isn’t much: there’s a narrow bed, a small, heavy desk and a sturdy chair, and not much else. The place smells stale and a little damp, until the window is opened, and fresh autumn air starts to breeze in. The bathroom is outdated, but there’s hot water, and Matthew brings fresh, softener-smelling linen from his own apartment across the hall.

Once the room is aired out, Barnes’s still damp shoes are put in front of the heater Matthew lugs out from a hallway closet, and it doesn’t take long until the apartment is warm and starting to feel almost cozy.

“Here’s the key,” Matthew says, and puts it down on the desk. “I’ll leave you to settle down and change into some dry clothes. Take a nap, you look half-dead. Come find me downstairs later, if you feel like it.”

“Thank you,” Barnes says again, a little overwhelmed, and Matthew grins boyishly, turns to leave the room.

“Wait,” Barnes starts, then gets awkward. “I-- I get nightmares, so. If I yell. I’m fine. But sorry.”

Matthew looks over his shoulder, and his face softens a little. “It’s no problem, Jamie,” he replies, kindly. “You’re not the first boy to come back from a war.”

He closes the door as he goes, and Barnes is left standing in the middle of the room, a little dumbfounded.

He supposes that yeah, the war just might’ve finally ended for him.

**

That night he sleeps full seven hours for the first time since he escaped. In the morning, Matthew puts a cup of hot, strong coffee down in front of him and grins at him over the kitchen counter, as Barnes chops up fifteen onions with a straight, unaffected face.

Barnes decides to stay, just for a while.

 

 

Rogers used to love him.

The thought comes to him at dusk on his first day, while he’s playing cards with Matthew in the café, closed for the night. He’s spent the evening on his knees, scrubbing the linoleum floor, and his arm is aching pleasantly from the hard work, like in some distant former life.

They used to dance on their freshly washed floors, he thinks, as Matthew deals them a new hand; Rogers and Bucky. He can’t remember why, but he remembers Rogers’s body pressed up against him, deceptively strong despite his skinny frame, the faltering feet not used to dancing. He remembers kissing that laughing mouth, carefully positioned so that they weren’t visible from the windows.

He remembers Rogers pulling the curtains, switching off the lamp, and taking him to bed.

“Want more tea?” Matthew asks, breaking Barnes out of his haze, and he nods, just to get a moment to collect his thoughts. Matthew gets up and goes poking the kettle behind the counter, and Barnes stares down at the cards in his hand. He has the king of hearts.

Rogers used to love him, long before the war, and Barnes doesn’t have to think hard to know the he used to love Rogers back, just as desperately. It was inevitable, maybe, if they really had been living in each other’s pockets for as long as the museum said they did, but no matter how hard Barnes tries wracking his brain, he can’t remember them ever sleeping together after Rogers got the serum.

Rogers loved somebody else too, in the war - the sharp-eyed, no-nonsense woman from the museum newsreel, her face looking up from Rogers’s compass - and maybe that’s why. Everything Barnes knows about the fabled ‘Bucky’ indicates that he was an unselfish bastard, ready to give up whatever it took for Rogers to be happy.

Bucky was kind of an idiot, Barnes thinks, thanking Matthew when a cup of tea is set in front of him. A fucking kid, not good at handling his feelings.

They play more cards.

 

Nightmares come and go in his tiny, musty room: there are nights he wakes up screaming, or nights he wakes up with the sound tangled up in his throat, suffocating him. Matthew seems healthily cautious but endlessly patient with him, never demanding an explanation, never demanding company or compensation other than an hour or two in the café kitchen, doing mindless, lulling chores. Barnes is grateful for Matthew; grateful for the cautious trust given.

Matthew asks around for small jobs that Barnes could do. It doesn’t bear much fruit, at first, mostly because Barnes is a complete stranger in town, but there are small victories. He mows the lawn of a woman who’s just out of surgery, helps an old man to plant garlic, fixes a swing set. Franklin Todd calls again, and Barnes spends one long, sunny afternoon covering the fence with a second coat of paint, getting splotches on his jeans. It feels good looking at them, afterwards: the stains are like medals of honor, a proof that he’s good at something, that he’s needed.

The longer he stays with Matthew, the more he starts noticing things to do on his own: he oils all the creaky hinges in the house one night when he can’t sleep, no matter how hard his training screams that it’s _good_ to hear any intruders, and fixes the broken step in the back stairs. He can’t wash dishes because it would require pulling off the glove on his prosthetic, but he carries as many heavy boxes of produce as he can to spare Matthew’s back.

He insists on washing the floors every night.

Being useful, even if it’s for the smallest of mundane things, feels like sitting down in a hot bath after a long, cold day, because it’s something HYDRA’s Asset would never have done. The Soldier was only good at killing; he wouldn’t have climbed on a teetering ladder to saw off a half-rotten apple tree branch, or helped carry a new mattress three floors up, but Barnes does all that and more.

People in town are a little wary of him, and that’s to be expected. Maybe that’s why every kind look or friendly smile makes a nest somewhere under Barnes’s ribcage, humbling and warm.

In his spare time, Barnes starts going for walks while Matthew is occupied with the café. It’s not a large town, and outside the main street the houses stop quickly, giving way to rolling fields and forests. The countryside is eerily silent for somebody like him who has always existed in cities, but Barnes enjoys it: the wind rustling the bushes and singing between the trees, the chirping of the birds, the busy ants that run across the country roads and footpaths.

On one cloudy morning, he stumbles upon the falconer.

It’s right after breakfast and the early rain has stopped; Barnes is breathing cool, soil-smelling air into his lungs as deep as he can, because there’s an itch under his skin that tells him it’s gonna be a bad day, and he doesn’t know how else to ignore it.

He’s startled by sudden, merry jingling, and when he looks up, he sees the hawk.

It’s circling over bushes, some distance from Barnes, but he’s got sharp eyes. The hawk is tamed for falconry, he realizes as soon as he sets his eyes on the bird. It’s wearing a pair of leather anklets, and the chiming must be a bell that’s affixed to it somewhere, probably to signal its whereabouts.

There’s a man standing in the middle of the harvested field, holding his gloved fist up for the hawk, and the bird swoops back. The man is tall, at retirement age but still built like a football player, and dressed in a comfortable hunting outfit: olive-green windbreaker and camo trousers, a vest with lots of pockets. Barnes stands at the edge of the field, his face shielded by his ballcap, and watches. The man is holding the hawk on his fist with ease that suggests years of experience, and the hawk is vigilant, head turning towards any rustle of bushes around them.

Then, suddenly, the hawk leaps off the fist, quick and lethal, towards the thicket on their right. Barnes watches, hypnotized by the movement, the speed, how the afternoon light hits the white-grey pattern on the hawk’s chest. The rabbit narrowly escapes into a burrow, and the dismayed bird loops back, lands on the falconer’s fist and rouses, feathers fluffing up. Barnes quirks a small smile.

There’s something proud in the way the hawk is sitting on the falconer’s fist, its chest puffed up and the sharp talons digging into the thick leather glove, and a soft voice is speaking to the Soldier, repeating держи так, держи так, as he huddles in the c--

 _No_ , Barnes thinks, blinking rapidly, shaking his head. He’s in Maine, he’s not the Soldier anymore, and nobody’s talking, but…

A pheasant rustles in the ditch halfway between Barnes and the falconer, and the hawk shoots off the fist and sprints after it, the scene exploding into a cloud of feathers as it catches the unlucky bird. Barnes stares, frozen in place.

There was a hawk.

Barnes stumbles back a step or two with the force of the memory. There _was_ a hawk, peaceful and tamed; and there was a guard and long monologues about how to man the bird.

Barnes whips around and starts back towards the café on unsteady legs.

It was still the early days, it must have been; the Soldier’s hair was still short and he had only one arm, the stump scarred and bare on his left side. He didn’t speak much Russian back then, curled up in the corner of his cell, feverish, aching and confused. The first word he learnt after ‘hands up’ was тетеревя́тник.

It means goshawk.

“Hey,” Matthew says, popping his head out of the kitchen as Barnes slinks in through the café backdoor. “Do you have a minute? I have a couple more onions, and I really need to get these pastries done.”

Barnes’s throat is tight and his heart is hammering in his chest, but he nods anyway. “Да,” he says, and slaps a hand over his mouth immediately, eyes going wide and terrified. But Matthew has already turned back into the kitchen, oblivious.

His legs feel like he’s just learning to walk as he moves cautiously into the kitchen, picks up a knife and starts chopping the onions.

The itch under his skin is moving, crawling up his chest, his throat, clawing its way up to his cheeks, and Barnes chops the onions, chops and chops and chops, and his eyes start stinging, making him blink.

He pushes the first pile from the cutting board onto a plate Matthew’s set up for it, and pulls another onion closer. The knife sinks into it with a satisfying _swish_ , and Barnes thinks how they peeled his identity off him like one would peel a layer off an onion; a stupid, clichéd thought, and suddenly his eyes are watering, a hitch working in his chest.

The next thing he knows, he’s clambering up the stairs into his room, the knife and the cutting board abandoned on the kitchen counter; tears and snot and nettles and ice pushing out of his eyes and nose, and he’s gulping for air, trying to catch his breath through the weeping.

“Jamie?” Matthew’s voice asks distantly, but Barnes slams the door, and the silence settles over him like a cloak.

 

 

There had been a tent, somewhere in Italy, where they told Barnes to strip and catalogued his wounds; the needle marks in the crook of his elbow. There had also been a fair-haired man who stormed into the tent, an agent in tow, and in less than kind words told them to leave Barnes alone and let him rest. By then, Barnes had loved him for almost twenty years, but had seen the look between him and the agent, and known that it was time to let him go.

There had been a facility, somewhere in the United States, where they told the Soldier to strip, and prepared him for the cryo chamber. There had also been a fair-haired man who told him he would shape the century, and pressed the chamber door closed. The Soldier had obeyed, and known nothing more.

There was a bridge, somewhere in Washington D.C., and there had been a name, a fist-sized stone dropped into the well inside the Soldier.

Sometimes Barnes thinks that his life - as far as he can remember it - has been just history repeating itself: a series of firsts over and over again; a series of orders; a series of fair-haired men with unimaginable power over him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> держи так = hold like this. A big kiss (no ОМОН) to the resident Russian language troll silentwalrus for help xoxo


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to rouse = an act or instance of rousing; especially an excited stir  
> to bate = of a falcon or hawk: to attempt to fly off something (such as a gauntlet) in fear (Merriam-Webster)

Barnes goes back to the fields two days later, hoping to see the hawk again. He hasn’t stopped thinking about it; the way it glided through the air, graceful and lightning-fast.

The falconer is there, and Barnes watches how he pets the bird gently, unfazed by the sharp beak and talons, and something small and strange uncurls in Barnes’s chest. _I want that too,_ he thinks, startled by the feeling and the sudden craving for touch. He doesn’t know which one he would be in this scenario: the person initiating the need for tactile comfort, or the dangerous bird, being touched without fear or the threat of violence.

The falconer looks up and notices Barnes, waves his hand in greeting. After a beat, Barnes waves back, and the man takes it as his cue to come closer. He’s got a friendly face, and he greets Barnes like they’re old acquaintances. “Hey,” he says, smiling. “Are you the new guy? Matthew’s been asking around for work for somebody.”

“Um, yes,” Barnes says, shifting from one foot to the other uncertainly. “I’m Jamie. Nolan.”

“Bill Meadows,” the man says, angling his body so that he can shake Barnes’s hand without bringing the hawk between them. Then he tickles the hawk’s breast a little. “This is Mabel.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Barnes says, awkwardly, even though the praise is genuine. “What kind of a hawk is she?”

“A goshawk,” Bill says. “I’ve had her for about six years now. She’s not exactly a grand old lady yet, but acts like one.”

Mabel opens her beak and clicks it closed, like she’s offended. She’s staring at Barnes with her wide, red eyes, but it’s a curious look, not hostile. Up close she is incredibly beautiful with her grey plumage and scaly raptor feet.

“She’s lovely,” Barnes agrees, and Bill smiles widely, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Have you ever seen a manned hawk before, Jamie?”

Barnes starts to nod, but ends up shaking his head because he doesn’t really remember the hawk he saw in 1945, only that it existed.

Bill points at the strips of leather attached to the anklets on Mabel’s legs. “These are called jesses. Those are used to tie her to her perch and my fist, so she doesn’t escape. When she spots a prey, it’s up to my reflexes to release her in time. That’s what hunting with a hawk is based on: speed, reflexes, and trust.”

“Trust?” Barnes asks, admiring the falconer’s knot tied in the swivel at the ends of the jesses.

“Mutual trust,” Bill corrects. “Just like with any animal. They need to trust you, and you need to trust them.” He eyes Barnes a little. “Would you like to see her fly?”

“Would love to, but I gotta go,” Barnes says, a little awkwardly. “I promised to weed Matthew’s garden.”

“Good luck with that,” Bill says, smiling. “I’ll see you around? I’m usually here every day with Mabel.”

“Yeah,” Barnes says. “See you.”

He does see Bill and Mabel again: at first it’s just every couple of days, and then suddenly it’s a daily activity for him to hike over the hills to meet them. Bill hires him to paint his garage, both the indoor walls and the cladding, and Barnes spends nearly a week at it with Mabel as his loyal companion as long as he’s outside. Bill moves her perch out of the mews in the garage extension so the smell of paint doesn’t disturb her, and Barnes takes to sitting next to her perch while he eats his lunch, observing her. Mabel is happy to have company, and Barnes is happy to not have to hold a conversation.

Before Barnes realizes, it’s been four weeks since he stumbled into town and Matthew took him in. He has a routine, now: he helps Matthew in the café in the mornings, cooks simple meals - reheated cans of soup, one-pot pasta dishes - on the hot plate in his damp room, does whatever work is available and wanders off to the fields to watch Bill fly Mabel in the afternoons. Matthew still refuses to accept his money, taking only labor as the compensation for the roof over Barnes’s head, and keeps pushing leftover food from the café into Barnes’s hands.

He’s feeling better, weirdly enough, and even some good memories have leaked through the cracks in his head. The smell of warm bread in a cramped family apartment. The uptick of a smile in the corner of Steve’s mouth. A curl of floppy hair on Steve’s forehead after a rainy day somewhere in occupied France.

He remembers Steve well enough to call him Steve, now. Maybe the stone inside him has finally hit the bottom.

Both Bill and Mabel have taken a liking to Barnes, and Bill even lets him try to hold Mabel sometimes, practice the reflex of releasing her from the fist when she spots a potential prey. The weight of the bird on his fist confuses the servos of his arm at first, but it’s not a bad feeling. Barnes feels comforted by the pressure, the knowledge that there is something warm and alive in his hands.

He gets along well with Bill: neither of them speak much, more interested in Mabel and the surrounding nature than in filling the silence with idle chit-chat. Bill and Matthew are alike in that they’re both kind to strangers, and patient with Barnes’s shit ton of baggage, his skittishness and the wariness he never leaves behind. But where Matthew is jovial and boyish, Bill is more serious and thoughtful, and Barnes feels a little more at ease with him with every passing day.

Bill teaches him how to fly a hawk: painstakingly going through different equipment from the bewits for attaching the bells, to the best way of putting on the anklets so that the bird’s legs aren’t chafed. He lends him books about falconry and educates Barnes about each bird’s individual flying weight; how just a gram too much or too little can affect the hawk’s will to fly. It’s a world full of details, hands-on craft, and different ways of thinking, and it sucks Barnes in before he has time to blink.

Unsurprisingly, it’s easier to focus on learning new things than to comb through the nettle bush in his head.

Bill has a wife and two kids who are both old enough to have a family of their own, and Bill likes to joke that he picked up falconry to deal with the empty nest syndrome. His older daughter, Alicia, has two sons, and the younger daughter, Mariyam, is getting married in the winter in the house she grew up in. She’s ex-military, Bill tells him, casting a sideways glance at Barnes as if to gauge his reaction. Air Force. Afghanistan. Pararescue team. Has a prosthetic leg. Barnes keeps carefully blank, and lets Bill draw his own conclusions about his history.

“Manning and training a gos takes time and patience,” Bill says once as they’re walking back to town, Mabel snoozing on his fist. “And there’s always going to be setbacks, escape attempts, reluctance to come back onto the fist. They like their freedom, just like we do.” He’s quiet for a while. “Maybe only people who’ve been trapped really know how they feel.”

Barnes goes home, curls his human fingers into his chest, wishing he could dig in and pull out the steadily ticking piece of crap inside him, and tries to stop shivering.

 

 

“You know,” Bill says slowly one day as they’re watching Mabel dive into a thicket after a pheasant, “it’s fairly hard to get the permit to become a falconer in the US.”

Barnes makes a sound in the back of his throat to show that he’s listening.

“You need to take a written test, get a more experienced falconer to sponsor you for two years, and have your facilities inspected.” Bill falls quiet for a moment, as Mabel reappears from the bush with a pissed-off aura and no game. Then he says, “I’ve been thinking about getting another gos.”

Barnes nods silently, and Bill looks at him slyly. “And if there just happened to be another guy around helping me with the logistics in his free time, nobody would mention it.”

“Wait,” Barnes says, frowning. “Are you-- suggesting that--”

“I’m offering you a chance to man a hawk, Jamie,” Bill says bluntly. “I like you, and you’re clearly good with Mabel, but you seem to be keen on lying low.”

Barnes opens his mouth, flinching, but Bill raises a hand to keep him quiet. “Nobody cares about that, Jamie. You have your reasons, and you don’t seem to be any danger to people living here.” His mouth twitches upwards. “Though, personally, I definitely would beat up old Matthew a bit if I had to spend so much time with him.”

He shrugs. “Anyway. I think you have potential for a hawk of your own, but it’s a long, slow process to become an austringer, and it brings the authorities in like flies. We have an empty apartment above our garage, where Mariyam lived for a bit before she moved in with her boyfriend, so you could live there and keep the hawk in the garage extension with Mabel. I’d be helping you with the training.”

Barnes gapes a little. Bill claps him on the shoulder. “Think about it. Come over for lunch tomorrow, Irina would love the chance to feed you again.”

Barnes goes back to the café with the thought spinning in his head. A hawk-- a hawk! A living, breathing creature dependant on him and how well he can pull through his own shit. It’s a lot of responsibility, and an anchor to a place he still doesn’t have a permanent spot in. If he accepts Bill’s suggestion, he can’t leave again.

It’s-- not as scary an idea as he thought it’d be. He’s enjoyed the small space he’s created for himself, and the townspeople have definitely warmed up to him now that they’ve gotten used to his presence. And if the shit hits the fan, there’s always Bill, whose hawk it would be, officially anyway.

“Bill wants me to train a hawk,” he says when he steps into the kitchen, where Matthew is filling up the dishwasher, whistling a Katy Perry song. Barnes is going to have _I kissed a girl_ stuck in his head for days.

“Bill Meadows is a crazy fuck,” Matthew says cheerfully. “But that sounds like it could be good for you.”

Barnes fiddles with his sleeves. “I don’t know if it’s too big a risk.”

“Life is too short to not take risks, Jamie,” Matthew says, closing the dishwasher. “If you want to train a hawk, you should do it. Just don’t bring it in my kitchen, the health inspectors would have a stroke.”

 _Too short_ , Barnes thinks, bitterly. _If anything, it’s been too long._

When he goes to bed that night, he dreams about a train on the mountainside, Steve reaching out to him.

In the dream, Steve’s hand closes around a hawk’s wing.

**

The next day he goes to the Meadows house, half a mile up the road from town. When Bill opens the door, Barnes swallows and says, “I want to do it.”

He moves into the small apartment above the Meadows garage four days later.

The weeks leading up to the arrival of the hawk are busy for Barnes. He still helps Matthew, running errands and assisting in the kitchen to pay for the prolonged upkeep Matthew refuses to take money for. But he also needs to prepare the facilities with Bill: dig out the tire perch Bill made for Mabel, figure out the equipment he’s going to need, read the books again, have long talks about the best approach and what’s to be expected.

He settles into his new surroundings. Bill and Irina have a small, self-made jungle gym and a pull-up bar in the backyard, and Barnes takes up seeing how many single-handed pull-ups he can do. He’s been working out since he got away from HYDRA just to keep himself in shape, but more often than not it’s been endless amounts of sit-ups in the middle of the night when he wasn’t able to sleep. Now he takes up running again, testing the limits of his body.

One morning when he’s back from his run and doing pull-ups, a car door slams in the driveway, and soon two giggling kids burst into the backyard, skidding to halt as soon as they see Barnes. Barnes stares back, hanging from the bar with one hand like an idiot monkey.

“Who are you?” the bigger of the kids asks, eyes round. He’s maybe six or seven years old; it’s been a while since Barnes was around children.

“Um,” Barnes says. “I’m Jamie. I live above the garage.”

“I’m Dominic and I’m six,” the kid says, creeping closer, pointing at his brother. “He’s Isaac and he’s four and he’s a _baby._ ”

“No I’m not,” Isaac yells, but Dominic powers over him.

“Mom says we should shake hands when we’re meeting new people. Do you want to shake hands? Isaac’s hands are sticky, he can’t do it.”

“Your mom is right, that’s polite,” Barnes agrees, a little overwhelmed. “We can, if you want to.”

“I have a frog,” Isaac interrupts. “His name is Tom.”

“That’s why you’re _sticky_ ,” Dominic says. “Sticky people can’t say hi to adults.”

“Can too,” Isaac argues.

“How can you hang with just one hand?” Dominic asks with eyes the size of dinner plates. “Even Grandpa can’t do that, and he’s _strong_. Can you lift a car like Captain America? Can you hang upside down? How long can you stay there? Grandpa helped me hang one time and I hanged there for, like, _four hours._ ” He tries scaling one of the pull-up bar poles, hanging onto it like a baby monkey. “Look, can you do this? My dad can do it _really well.”_

“Um,” Barnes says again and drops down from the bar. The kids are talking so much that he feels more than a little out of his depth. “Never tried lifting a car.” He crouches so that he’s eye level with the kids and extends his bare right hand tentatively towards them. Dominic drops from the pole, squares his shoulders and marches closer to shake his hand, pumps it exaggeratedly like in cartoons.

“Nice to meet you,” Dominic says, like he’s been practising sounding like an adult, and Barnes can’t help a small smile.

“Nice to meet you too,” he says, letting go of the kid’s hand but staying down at their level. “And you, Isaac.”

A woman rounds the corner of the house, startling when she sees Barnes. “Hey,” she says, warily. She’s in her mid- to late thirties, with dark hair and a striking resemblance to Irina.

Barnes nods at her, staying crouched down to give her the height advantage in hopes of making himself look less menacing. He knows what he looks like: a random hobo in a hoodie and sweatpants, talking to her kids. She’s got the right to be suspicious.

“Morning, Jamie,” Bill says, turning up from the front yard as well. “Seems that you’ve met my grandkids, and this is my daughter, Alicia. Al, this is our new tenant.”

Barnes gets up and offers his hand to her for a shake. She narrows her eyes slightly, assessing, before taking it and giving it a tight squeeze, like she wants to show him his place. “Alicia Williams. We live in the next town over.”

“Jamie Nolan,” Barnes says, careful to not squeeze too tightly himself. “Good to meet you.”

“Mom, _Mom,”_ Isaac says loudly as he sidles up next to her, tugging her pants leg. “He can pull up with just one hand.”

“Really?” Alicia says, adopting the surprised tone people get when they’re talking to children. “He must be really strong.”

“He is!” Dominic yells. “Grandpa, Grandpa, he’s a _superman.”_

“Is he now,” Bill says, amused.

“Can you show Mom?” Isaac asks, turning his huge eyes towards Barnes. He’s unfairly cute, and his dark curls suddenly remind Barnes of his sisters, his heart clenching painfully. “Please, Mr Jamie? Please please please?”

“Pleaaase,” Dominic choruses. “Mom won’t believe if you don’t!”

“Pleaaase,” Isaac nearly yowls. Alicia looks like she needs a stiff drink.

“Um,” Barnes says. Bill’s grinning behind Alicia’s back like it’s the best thing he’s seen today. “Okay?” He steps back under the bar, grabs it with his right hand, and hoists himself up easily.

“That’s so cool,” Dominic breathes, miming the pull-up motion, his head tilted back. “Mom, when I grow up, I want to be super strong too. I’m gonna be as strong as the Hulk.”

Alicia laughs at that, fondly, and ruffles his hair. “Eat your veggies, and I’m sure you will be.”

“Mom, he has a funny hand,” Isaac says suddenly, pointing at Barnes’s left hand, hidden under the glove, as Barnes’s feet touch the ground again.

“Isaac!” Alicia scolds. “That’s rude. I’m sorry,” she says to Barnes in an apologetic tone.

“It’s okay,” Barnes says, squatting down so that he can look Isaac in the eye. “I hurt my arm badly, a long time ago,” he says slowly, trying to skirt around the fact that he’s got an advanced prosthetic that can be used as a weapon. “It’s all good now, but it doesn’t look pretty. That’s why I wear a glove.”

“Okay,” Isaac says, squinting like he’s trying to see through the glove, no doubt imagining that Barnes’s hand is a horrifying, grisly thing. Then he holds up his arms, makes grabby movements towards Barnes’s right arm. “Up! Pick me up, Mr Jamie!”

“Me too! Can you lift us both?” Dominic adds.

Isaac’s eyes go even wider. “Can you lift us both _with one arm?_ Even Daddy can’t do that!”

“That’s enough,” Alicia butts in, but a sudden, helpless smile tugs at Barnes’s mouth. He feels a little awkward being around so many new people, but the kids’ enthusiasm is catching, and it feels good that there’s somebody who’s not treating him like a shellshock-riddled vet.

“Probably,” he says, his mouth curling into a grin. “I’ll show you some other time, if it’s all right with your mom.”

Alicia rolls her eyes. “Like I can actually stop these kids from doing anything,” she says, but she’s smiling too. “Come on, boys, let’s go say hi to your Grandma.”

“Bye Mr Jamie!” Isaac yells as they’re herded back into the house.

“Bye! You’re really nice!” Dominic yells, and Barnes can’t stop the surprised laugh that bubbles up in his chest.

“Kids,” Bill says, shaking his head fondly as the back door closes. “You got plans for today?”

Barnes nods. “Lena Schwartz is moving. Promised to help.”

Bill nods approvingly. “If you’re around at dinnertime, you’re welcome to join us. Alicia and the kids are staying for a couple of days. Her husband is in Belgium on an overseas assignment until Christmas, and the kids are a handful sometimes. This way she gets a bit of a break.”

Barnes nods again. “They seem like good kids.”

“That’s what they are,” Bill agrees, then pats Barnes on his right shoulder. “Good luck with the move, give Lena my love.”

“Will do,” Barnes says, and goes to take a shower.

His small apartment turns into a home almost surreptitiously. Bill helps him order things online after it’s clear Barnes doesn’t want to risk a foray into a larger city with more shops; not even blinking at the fact that Barnes doesn’t have a credit card. They work it out easily enough: Bill uses his card online, and Barnes pays him back in cash.

Soon enough signs of life appear in the flat: a cheap laptop, piles of books from the tiny thrift shop in town, a soft blanket Irina brings out as a housewarming gift. Accustomed to drinking great coffee every morning at Matthew’s, Barnes orders a grinder, a coffee machine, and a bag of good beans, making Matthew smile in a way that’s almost smug when he comes over for a visit.

New clothes appear in the woefully empty drawers of his dresser: small piles of t-shirts and boxer briefs without holes in them, warm knits and sweatpants, running shoes and long thermal underwear. He’s gearing up for the winter, settled down enough that he dares to build a home, own more things than what he can fit in his backpack.

It’s scary in its simplicity, scarier than a lot of things he’s done since he got out. But there is something hot and glowing inside him when he wakes up on the better mornings and pulls on a soft new shirt, brushes his hair meticulously in the bathroom until it’s shiny and silky smooth.

He makes as much of the equipment himself as he can: Bill gives him several strips of kangaroo hide he keeps in the garage and shows him the workbench tucked in the corner, teaches him how to cut the leather and turn it into anklets and jesses. There are drawn instructions taped to the wall, describing the stages, and Barnes follows them carefully.

Working with his hands silences the constant buzzing in Barnes’s head: he learnt that when he was picking fruit in Greece, and it’s become a way to deal with his fucked-up brain. But crafting doesn’t have the same tiring quality as manual labor, and while his head keeps quiet when he’s threading the leashes, by the end of the day he’s jittering with pent-up energy.

One evening, when he accidentally breaks a nearly finished jess with his left hand, he nearly throws the closest tool, swearing, and storms outside to have some fresh air. It’s drizzling, and he sits down on the bench outside the garage, yanking the glove off. The offending prosthetic catches the yard light, glinting dully, and Barnes is struck by a sudden desire to punch something, to have a proper fight instead of the ones he has with his own brain. He curls his hand into a fist, and that-- _that_ is familiar; that’s something he’d know how to do even in his sleep; that’s where his skills lie.

Stealth and violence. Give him a living thing and chances are that he’s going to kill it. _Maybe,_ a small voice inside him whispers, _you’re even going to enjoy it._

Steve’s beaten face comes up in his mind like summoned, and his knuckles suddenly remember the ghost ache of slamming into Steve’s cheekbone.

Then the motion sensor light switches itself off, plunging him into autumn darkness, and the spell breaks. He recoils physically, horrified and disgusted with himself, and the light flicks back on. Under the yellow glow his hand looks dirty, like it hasn’t been maintained properly. Nobody has seen his arm since he dragged Steve out of the Potomac; the glove and long sleeves stay on, and maybe-- maybe he’s been protecting himself, too, by keeping it hidden as well as he can even when he’s alone.

But he needs to use that arm for good things, now. He needs it to cook, to pick apples and paint fences and brush his hair, and soon - soon he’s going to need it to hold a hawk.

He swallows, opening his fist, and looks down at it, considering. Then he raises his hand and slaps himself hard on the cheek. The force of the blow makes his ears ring and he bites his lip, a vicious ache spreading from where the hit landed, hot and stinging and satisfying.

 _There,_ he thinks. _Now get a fucking grip._

He finishes making the equipment that night.

_She’s a baby,_ is Barnes’s first thought. _She’s a goddamn baby._

The gos is significantly smaller than Bill’s Mabel, and she looks terrified and fragile when Bill eases her out from the box. She’s hooded but doesn’t bate when she’s put on her perch in the living room in Barnes’s new apartment, huddled into a shivering ball. Barnes can’t decide whether his heart is breaking in sympathy, or cracking open with the sudden surge of affection he feels for the bird.

She’s a lovely brown color of juvenile goshawks, with broad, dark cinnamon-colored stripes on her chest. When Barnes picked her up from Bill’s hands, gently, he could feel her fast little heart beating under the feathers, young and scared.

Barnes keeps her hooded for the first day and through the night, letting her slowly adjust to the sounds before giving even a single thought to taking the hood off. He remembers too well getting pulled out of the cryo chamber, confused and frightened, thrust into the light and noise like a terrified animal.

 _I will be kind_ , he thinks as he watches the hawk sitting ramrod straight and tense on the perch. _I will do my best to be kind._

He names her Ruth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh Bill is literally a crazy fuck to skirt authorities like that, but let's ignore the plotholes. Bill just wants a new son who looks a bit like he slept in the garbage can, and he thinks the best way to win Barnes's heart is to do something illegal. Also, goshawks are generally notoriously hard to man and definitely not beginner's birds, but for the sake of Plot, both Mabel and Ruth are easy by nature. I wouldn't recommend petting any hawk you see out there, though.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a couple of mentions of self-harm (not severe or with anything sharp) in this chapter.

The next morning he’s almost sick with nerves and excitement when he gets up and goes to the living room.

Ruth is sitting on her perch, a slant of golden light hitting her chest, highlighting the auburn hues in her feathers. She tenses up as soon as she realizes Barnes is in the room, and Barnes tries to approach her with audible but not overly loud steps so she can track his movements.

He pulls a thick falconer’s glove on his left hand and picks Ruth up, slowly, gently, unties the perch leash from the swivel in her jesses and ties the glove leash on instead. Once Ruth is sitting securely on his fist, he tucks a strip of raw steak into the glove for her, and moves to sit down on the couch.

Ruth falters, surprised by the suddenly moving perch, and her talons tighten their grip on the glove. She’s stopped shivering, cautious and alert, and Barnes takes a deep breath, bites his lip and takes off the hood.

For one short, frozen moment, Ruth’s wide yellow eyes stare directly at him. Barnes has a fleeting microsecond to realize that she is absolutely _gorgeous,_ and then she bates, terrified and desperate to get away, but Barnes’s grip holds even if he flinches, not able to help it. His whole body feels high-strung with adrenaline and nervous energy as he picks Ruth back up on his fist, as calmly as he can. She bates again and again and again, until she’s exhausted and just squeezing the glove with crushing force, trying to pull herself in, as small as she can get.

Barnes swallows, staring right ahead, and allows his heart rate to calm down, tries to find that warm, dark space in his head he used to go when he was staking out a target. It takes some time, thanks to the surge of adrenaline still rushing through him, but when he finally stumbles upon it, it’s easy to sink in and become invisible.

That’s a crucial part in taming a hawk, Bill told him: the ability to just cease to exist, lose the consciousness of self and become a part of the room. The hawk has to get used to him and his presence, has to be able to forget he’s even there so that the food tucked under her feet becomes more important than her fear.

For Bill that had been a difficult thing to learn, too used to drawing attention as a high school teacher. But it’s exactly what Barnes knows how to do: he’s spent decades trying to blend into the dark, become a ghost, and most importantly, he knows how to wait.

Time slows down. The weight of the hawk on Barnes’s fist is new and almost wondrous. He’s lived with the prosthetic for a long time, and holding Ruth on it feels, in some peculiar way, like it isn’t made of wires and metal, but flesh and blood again. Barnes watches the light move on the wall, waiting, concentrating on making himself incrementally lighter, less there, like he’s chipping pieces off from a block of marble.

Ruth is still tense, and whenever Barnes has to move, even if it’s wrinkling his nose when it itches, she flinches like she’s expecting an attack.

An hour ticks by, and slowly, slowly, the smell of fear in the room starts to lessen. Barnes spends the time imagining himself as a forest animal; trying very hard to be small and unimportant, to stay hidden from predators, because he doesn’t have a target, now. He squeezes the piece of steak in his left fist a little, and the slight disruption of balance makes Ruth wobble and glance down at the food in surprise.

She’s still too afraid and wary to eat, though, and they’re both getting tired, so Barnes carefully slips the hood back on her head and takes her back to the perch. She falls asleep almost immediately, worn out, and Barnes throws away the piece of meat and goes to see Bill.

When Barnes repeats the process an hour later, Ruth bates twice, but she’s already less afraid, having done this once before. Once Barnes is concentrated on making himself not there, she starts slowly examining their surroundings: she’s turning her head curiously up and down, tracking the movement of light on the wall, the ticking clock in the small dining area. She scratches her chin with one talon, and seems incredibly curious about the furniture and the ceiling lamp.

It’s not a large apartment: there’s an open-plan kitchen in the other end of the living room, and the doors to the bedroom and the staircase in the other. It’s sparsely furnished but enough for Barnes, and more than enough for a baby goshawk who’s never seen anything like it.

At some point Ruth turns her head, sees Barnes, and jumps slightly, like she forgot he was there, and something warm rushes through him. She’s settling in, already tamer, and Barnes looks at her fluffy chin and the loose down that’s fallen on his sleeve, and thinks, _Yeah, we’ll be fine._

The next couple of days pass in a strange, giddy haze. Ruth is almost constantly on his fist as he reads, watches tv, heats up the food he piled in his freezer before the hawk came. She’s getting used to his company fast and is almost oddly tame, compared to the horror stories he read online and in the books. Barnes is a little concerned that there’s something wrong with her, but it’s forgotten when she finally starts relaxing from the moment he picks her up, and eats from the fist. The mad rush of joy is unexpected and heady, and Barnes is almost floored by the intensity of it. His hawk is eating. He’s not fucking up. _He’s not fucking up._

“Hey, baby girl, it’s time for more weird-ass modern tv,” he says one morning as he takes Ruth up on his fist. She’s a little touchy, bristling, and her talons are twitching on the gauntlet. Barnes keeps her a safe distance away, just in case she wants to murder something. She clicks her beak angrily at him as he sits down on the couch. “Hey, Ruth, if we’re gonna be friends, I really need you to stop twitching and watch this fucking show with me. I want to know who murdered that Palmer kid.”

Ruth bristles again, pissy, but tv magic does its job, and soon she’s just as transfixed as Barnes. “What the hell is going on in this?” Barnes asks out loud at some point, and Ruth makes a funny noise through her beak, almost like she’s as offended by the nonsense as he is.

Barnes keeps up the commentary throughout the episode, and when he fixes himself some food, and then the memories start trickling through. Weirdly enough, talking to her feels almost like he has a sounding board when in reality he’s just talking to himself. It’s almost like being back in Father Francis’s confessional, except better because the bird on his arm can’t judge him silently, and she sleeps through most of his monologues, anyway.

He loses time, sometimes, as he’s talking to her: dark, creeping things suck him in like mud, and he startles out of it minutes or hours later to find that Ruth is dozing and the light on the wall has changed. But he tells her about Steve, too; tells about that persistent, floppy curl of hair, the pale cheeks grown hot with fever, the strength and kindness Bucky ended up turning away from. Memories knit together the more he talks, slowly, like building a house with only one, aching hand.

Five days after Ruth’s arrival, Bill comes in for a coffee and to start getting her used to other people. He’s reading the newspaper at the dining table when Barnes takes the hood off, cautious and hopeful, prepared for bating. But Ruth merely flinches when she sees another person, instinctively huddling closer to Barnes, and then gets curious about the sound of the newspaper, the crinkling pages. She’s a little tense, wary, but otherwise calm, and Barnes can’t believe his eyes at how easily she accepts Bill’s presence.

“Jesus, Jamie,” Bill says when he looks up, alerted by the silence, and sees the hawk, perched on Barnes’s hand. “Look at her, she’s cool as a cucumber. Didn’t bate, right?”

“Yeah,” Barnes says, his voice a little distant, almost wondering. “Is it normal?”

“Normal? Maybe not _common_ , but every hawk is different. She might just be tamer by nature. You’re doing good,” Bill assures him. On the fist, Ruth shakes herself a little, feathers fluffing up. “Look at her, she’s rousing. She’s not afraid of either of us.”

Barnes can’t stop staring at Ruth. She’s eyeing Bill with fascination, then turns to look at Barnes and rouses again, easy as anything, makes a tiny, happy squeal through her beak, like she’s glad to see him.

“You’re doing good,” Bill repeats in a softer tone, like he can see how Barnes’s heart is swelling with fondness and an overwhelming urge to cry. “She’ll be flying in no time.”

“A little bird told me that Bill Meadows has gotten his new hawk,” Matthew says in greeting when Barnes lets himself in through the kitchen door, a couple of nights later. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages, come sit down. Tea?”

“Please,” Barnes says, and sits down at the table where Matthew’s put a deck of cards and two mugs. It’s eight p.m. and the café is already closed, the cleaning done. Barnes left Ruth to sleep on her perch, and while he’s constantly itching to go back to check on her, it’s important that he sees other people. Becoming a hermit again isn’t healthy.

“How’s the hawk taming going?” Matthew asks as he pours tea for both of them, plonks a jar of honey in front of Barnes.

“Good,” Barnes says, screwing open the lid and spooning a dollop of honey into his mug. “I think. She’s doing great.”

Matthew makes a pleased sound. “She got a name yet?”

“Ruth.”

“Ruth,” Matthew repeats, purses his mouth like he’s tasting the name. “That’s a good name. Honest, easy to say, not unnecessarily complicated. Are you religious, Jamie?”

Barnes shakes his head. “Long time ago, maybe. Not anymore.”

“Me neither,” Matthew says. “But I used to go to Sunday school when I was a kid, somewhere in the Dark Ages. Did you know that Ruth is a character in the Bible?”

A shrug. “Sort of.”

“ _'But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried” ’_ ,” Matthew quotes easily. He’s clearly read the big book more than just in Sunday school. “In the Bible, Ruth is the epitome of loyalty and companionship. It’s a good name for something you wish to become your friend.”

 _For where you go, I will go,_ Barnes thinks, and something sharp and painful pushes its way between his ribs, twisting like a knife. Because suddenly all he can see is Steve: his stricken face and the crumpled 4F slip when Bucky first came home in his uniform; the worry in his eyes when he helped Bucky down from the examination table; the fraction of a second when Bucky was sure Steve would let go and fall after him.

 _Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you,_ Barnes thinks, remembering vividly the honorable discharge papers he refused, the bile that rose up to his mouth when he heard that their next mission was to stop Zola. “Yeah,” he says, a little strangled, and bends down under the table pretending to re-tie his shoelaces, because suddenly there’s hot, itching pressure behind his eyes and he has to hide his face.

He’s doing better. _He’s doing better._

And still he somehow wishes he wasn’t, his skin crawling and burning like he fell headfirst into the bush of nettles he never wanted to touch. It might be easier if he could live without the slivers of a life long gone; it certainly would be kinder.

He wipes his eyes under the table, pinches himself hard in the soft, vulnerable spot on the inside of his elbow with his metal fingers.

“What the hell does a bird like that even _eat?”_ Matthew asks when Barnes resurfaces, both of them ignoring the elephant in the room as well as they can.

Trust is built slowly, one day at the time. There are setbacks, of course, because like Barnes has already learnt, few things in life are linear. Barnes scares both Ruth and himself badly a couple of times by waking up yelling in the middle of the night, and she bates when he tries to pick her up the next day. There are mornings when he can’t surface from his nightmares at all, rolled tight in the cocoon of his blankets with a splitting headache, feeling the fragile, cautious connection wane the longer he stays away from his hawk.

Despite the stumbles, Ruth learns to step from her perch onto Barnes’s fist, then jump on it when tempted enough with food. She’s a fast learner, and alarmingly tame, but Barnes isn’t going to question his good luck. He takes the small and big victories as they are: a miracle, something wild and terrified starting to lean on him, accepting his kindness.

They go outside for the first time late one morning, heading up the road, away from the town. Ruth is tense and scared at first, bare-headed against the new world, her feathers sealed tightly against her body, but when nothing bad happens, she starts to relax, observe her surroundings. She’s fascinated by the trees and the rolling fields, flinching back when a tractor rumbles by in the distance, or dogs bark on the other side of the field. Barnes flinches back too, instinctively, in a way he hasn’t in several weeks.

But as soon as the danger has passed, Ruth’s feathers soften up again, and she’s back to her inquisitiveness. She’s so fearless, Barnes thinks, much readier to adapt in the world than he is--was? Maybe they’ll learn this new kind of life together.

A pheasant runs across the road and Ruth stiffens, going rigid and ready in a fraction of a second, and Barnes grips her jesses tighter. Her posture has changed, the air around them almost electric as her primal instincts go into overdrive at the sight of prey.

“Easy, Ruth,” Barnes says, not really hearing his own voice. He’s staring at Ruth, mesmerized. Is that how he used to look when he slipped into battle mode, coiled up and hungry?

Ruth eases up slowly, getting more interested in the piece of steak in Barnes’s hand than the rustling in the roadside bushes, and Barnes turns back towards the house.

There’s bile burning at the back of his throat, but he tries to ignore it.

The first time they fly Ruth, it’s with a creance, a long light cord tied to her jesses, and they stay safely inside an empty barn to prevent any escape attempts. But when put down on a beam on the back wall of the barn, Ruth doesn’t let Barnes walk even four feet away before she’s already slamming onto his fist, tucking into her food. She nearly makes him stumble a couple of times with the surprise and the force she hits his hand, before Bill steps up to hold her, to let Barnes get far enough for them to actually practice.

Barnes doesn’t even get the chance to properly whistle to her: she’s in the air and shooting towards him before the sound manages to get past his lips. She flies perfectly, without hesitation, even though Barnes’s heart jackrabbits every time she bursts into flight from Bill’s fist.

The distance grows every day, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, until it’s thirty feet, and Barnes’s hands shake as he attaches the bell and a small tracker to her anklets, readying her for flying outside. Once she flies fifty feet, he’s going to take away the creance, and then it’ll be the ultimate test. If she doesn’t come back onto the fist, Barnes doesn’t know what he’ll do. They’ve been doing so well, and he doesn’t know if he can handle that setback without feeling like he’s failed everything: Ruth, Bill, this new fragile life he’s put together, and most of all himself.

He meets Bill and Irina’s grandchildren again, this time slightly more prepared for the flood of chatter that comes with them. Dominic and Isaac ask about a million questions, at least half of them about Ruth, who’s sitting on his fist, looking wary but not afraid. Barnes is overwhelmingly proud of her and how easily she’s adapting to new people, even the loud children.

Later, when Ruth is back on her perch and Barnes is doing his workout routine outside, the kids run around him the whole time, yelling constantly about how many pushups he can do, could he do them one-handed, could he do them with Dominic and Isaac on his back. The answer to the last two turns out to be yes, and when it’s time for Alicia and the kids to leave, the boys cling onto Barnes almost as much as to their grandparents, hugging him tightly.

“We have to go home but please don’t leave, Mr Jamie, please be here when we come back,” Dominic says, hanging onto Barnes’s shell jacket like a baby koala. Isaac is wrapped around Barnes’s leg, echoing the plea.

It’s a strange but not unwelcome gesture, and Barnes’s heart groans a little in his chest, creaking wider and wider to accommodate them.

Ruth doesn’t escape, but her first time outside without the creance doesn’t go well, either.

There are a couple of close calls, but most of the time she doesn’t even hit the fist but ends up on the ground a few feet away instead, looking bewildered, no matter how much Barnes whistles or claps his hands together, trying to call her to him. Barnes is frustrated and angry and so nervous that he feels sick, because she’s been flying so well with the creance and he doesn’t know what’s _wrong_ with her, she was _perfect_ before he let her loose.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Bill says, putting a reassuring hand on Barnes’s right shoulder, but he flinches away, disappointed in himself.

The next day isn’t any better: Barnes has been awake for most of the night, unable to sleep and punishing himself for failing by pinching his leg repeatedly, so that his left thigh is a mess of purpling bruises. Ruth doesn’t want to fly, and Bill’s comforting tone doesn’t help a bit. Barnes goes back home with the uncooperative bird on his fist, puts her on her perch and feeds her mechanically, puts out plenty of water, and goes back to bed.

He surfaces what feels like days later with only a hazy recollection of the pit of self-hatred he’s been wallowing in. His head is aching and his skin is mottled with bruises, but when he rushes out of the bedroom, terrified that he’s done something to Ruth to punish _her,_ he finds her unruffled, squealing happily when she spots Barnes.

Barnes’s legs are shaky as he sits down hard on the couch and bursts into tears, because the relief is so palpable, like something wrenching loose in him.

Ruth is slightly lighter when he weighs her later that morning, and when a worried-looking Bill comes to his door to ask if he wants to try again, Barnes says yes, even if he’s avoiding Bill’s eyes, gearing himself up for another disappointment.

But Ruth flies like a dream: she’s lightning-fast and sure on the wing, none of the hesitation left in her as she sets off from Bill’s arm and hits Barnes’s fist merely seconds later. Her aim is spot on, and she’s powerful and mesmerizing.

“She must have hit her flying weight,” Bill says as he jogs over, grinning so wide that it looks painful. “Look at her, she’s like a different hawk!”

“Yeah,” Barnes says, something hot and happy lodged in his throat. He carefully lifts his right hand and strokes Ruth’s breast with one finger, and she preens, rousing. They try again and again, and she’s confident in her skin, flying longer and longer distances, coming back to the fist when it’s lifted and Barnes’s whistle cuts through the air.

The happiness lasts for a few days, until Ruth catches her first prey: a pheasant, plump and colorful. When Barnes reaches them, Ruth is sitting on the carcass, tearing pieces of it, and she’s vibrating with excitement, thrilled by the hunt.

It’s the first time Barnes has really seen her in her element and it hits him hard: until now he’d been somehow thinking that he would just train a hawk, maybe learn something on the way. He never stopped to consider exactly _why_ he was manning her, even after seeing Bill with Mabel dozens of times, and now that reason is sitting in front of him.

He’s trained her to kill. He took a hawk with the intention of taming her so that she would hunt on his orders.

The realization slams into him like a truck, and he just has time to turn away before he’s retching, horrified and ashamed of himself. He’s no better, _no better_ than the people who trained him, pulled him out of cryofreeze to do their bidding, kept him calm and docile like a well-trained dog.

 _But I’m trying to be kind,_ he thinks desperately as he struggles to get a grip of himself, nausea and shame welling in his stomach. _I don’t hurt her. I’m trying so hard to be kind._

When Bill and Mabel catch up with him, Bill’s expression is concerned, but he doesn’t ask about it, and Barnes doesn’t tell.

It gets better, slowly.

Bit by bit, Barnes gets over his revelation and learns to rethink the situation; understands the importance of handling his hawk with gentleness and to respect himself for not repeating the way he was treated. He relearns how to pluck a pheasant or skin a hare, how to cook something more complicated than canned foods: skills he gained in his first life and then forgot for a long time.

He develops a slightly improved routine with Ruth: early wake-up, breakfast, grooming, any jobs offered to him, then out to the hills for four hours to fly Ruth, and back for dinner and early bedtime.

The longer he’s out of HYDRA’s hands, the more he puts effort into his appearance and personal hygiene: his morning bathroom time used to be three minutes during which he brushed his teeth, splashed cold water on his face and scrubbed furiously, or took a cold shower, having to wash his hair. By November it’s stretched into nearly twenty minutes of shaving, scrubbing, moisturizing, brushing his hair, clipping his nails, and inspecting his reflection carefully to mark any changes.

He looks healthier, his skin no longer pale and sallow but clear and slightly tanned from the rare sunny days; the bruise-purple shadows on his face are fainter, his eyes no longer sunken and haunted. His hair has grown ridiculously, hanging way past the nape of his neck now, long enough to braid properly, and it’s thick and shiny; miles away from the limp mop he had back in September.

He looks, Barnes realizes one morning before Christmas, like a human again, and he has to sit down on the toilet and press a hand against his eyes to keep himself from crying.

Christmas comes and goes. Barnes gets invited to the Meadows’ Christmas lunch and to the church with them, but goes only to the former. It’s a chaotic affair: Alicia’s husband, Jeff, is back from his overseas assignment, and Mariyam and her fiancé, Jacob, have come in for the holidays as well, so there’s nine people in total crammed into the dining room. Barnes barely lasts for the hour and a half the actual eating takes, and then he has to apologize and escape back to his place to breathe. They all take it in stride; Mariyam’s deployment has taught them a lot about dealing with veterans, and that’s what they take Barnes for as well.

Barnes even gets presents: a knit beanie and a dark grey snowsuit from Bill and Irina, and two drawings of him and Ruth from the kids. He pins them on his fridge, his heart so full that it feels like it’s going to burst.

It’s been snowing for a couple of days and the landscape has turned into a winter wonderland. He goes for a walk with Ruth for an hour, wearing his new snowsuit and enjoying the crunch of snow under his boots, and spends the rest of the day napping and reading a book on the couch. Matthew is in Cancun on his annual winter holiday since he doesn’t have family, and sends a selfie from the beach late in the evening, when Barnes is already in bed. He wakes up to the notification sound and smiles groggily at the photo before rolling onto his side and going back to sleep.

It’s not a bad Christmas, considering.

A couple of days later, just before the New Year, Barnes takes Ruth out to the field to catch the short daylight hours. It’s not a good day for either of them: Barnes woke up with the picture of Steve’s busted face in his head and the taste of bile in his mouth, and Ruth has been fussy and sulky all morning. The weather has gotten a little warmer again, and the snow is heavy with water, hard to walk in. He opted for cargo trousers and a windbreaker when he left, assuming it would be too warm for the snow suit, but the dampness is seeping into his bones and he barely manages to stay comfortable by stomping around the fields.

Barnes releases Ruth when she spots a hare, but her sprint is half-hearted and the hare manages to escape. When Ruth turns back, she looks awkward and reluctant to be on the wing. Maybe she’s over her flying weight again and therefore not feeling it, but instead of landing back on Barnes’s fist, she barely grazes the glove with her talons and pulls back again, flying over him and away.

Barnes’s heart leaps up in his throat. “Ruth!” he calls, but the bird doesn’t even acknowledge him, sprinting towards the forest. The bell is jingling merrily as she swoops down to dodge a branch at the edge of the woods, then back up, rising higher and higher.

“Fuck,” Barnes says, then more emphatically, “ _fuck,_ fuck, no, fuck,” and starts jogging after his hawk that’s gliding over the trees in a slow, graceful circle. The fear of losing her is palpable even when Barnes knows that there’s a tracker attached to her; but even worse is the disappointment, directed at himself more than Ruth.

“Hey, baby girl,” he yells, clicking his tongue invitingly as he runs, pulling a treat from one of his pouches and stashing it in his gloved hand. He whistles, clapping his hands. “Come on, Ruth, please?”

Ruth lands in a tall tree, parks herself on a branch and rouses, pleased with herself. Barnes skids to a halt under the tree, wiggles the food at her. “Come look what I have here,” he calls, voice soft, inviting. The rain starts again, cold and drizzling, growing steadier.

Ruth rouses again, stubborn and not caring about Barnes’s coaxing. She’s looking at the world curiously, head turning when wet snow thunks heavily down from a nearby branch, and Barnes looks up at her, how she’s tasting freedom, and slowly his outreached hand sinks down.

The Soldier escaped before, just once. He walked out of his cage by skipping the pickup point and boarding the bus to New York without really knowing why. He roamed free in the city until his handlers caught him and locked him back up.

That’s what Ruth is doing now, Barnes thinks, as he sits down under the tree to stay out of the downpour. She’s enjoying her old habitat, let away by a foolish man who thought she’d be more obedient after all the training; and like the Soldier, she too will be taken back into her prison and forced to obey.

 _I don’t know what I’m doing,_ Barnes thinks as he closes his eyes and tips his head back to rest against the tree trunk. _God, I don’t know what the fuck I am trying to do._

Ruth eventually comes down hours later, like she’s starting to realize that water sliding down her back isn’t exactly a comfortable feeling. Barnes’s human hand is shaking badly as he ties the glove leash to her jesses, and starts towards home on unsteady feet. It’s been almost five hours since he left the house, and darkness has fallen.

Bill comes outside when Barnes trudges onto the yard, triggering the motion sensor of the porch light. “Hey,” he says, sounding relieved. “Is everything all right? I got worried when it got dark and you hadn’t come back.”

Barnes opens his mouth but can’t get anything out. Bill frowns, looking alarmed. “Jamie, how about you take Ruth to her perch, change into dry clothes, and come over for a cup of tea?”

Barnes nods, relieved to have clear orders on which to operate. He suddenly realizes that he’s shivering in his wet clothes, and goes to put Ruth on her perch in the garage extension. Mabel is sleeping on the other side of the narrow room, and she barely opens her eye to glance at them before closing it again and falling back asleep. Barnes’s hand is still trembling as he lets Ruth hop off from the fist and changes her short hunting jesses for longer ones.

Ruth clicks her beak at him, but the turn of her head is curious, like she’s sensing his mood, and Barnes strokes her spotted breast carefully with his finger. “I love you,” he says to Ruth in the light of the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and she rouses, spraying droplets on his jacket.

He is still shivering as he peels off the damp layers and puts on dry sweats, a long-sleeved thermal shirt and a hoodie, pulls on two pairs of woolen socks and stuffs his feet into fleece-lined rubber boots. His hair is wet, and he tries to towel it off as well as he can; tries to braid it with one steady and one uncontrollable hand. His teeth are chattering.

He lets himself into the house, and Bill peeks up from the kitchen, smiling reassuringly. “Come in, hope you’re dry and warm now. Tea’s almost done.”

Barnes toes off his boots and shuffles into the kitchen, takes a seat at the breakfast table, pulling himself as small as he can get. It’s warm and dark, just the old lamp lit above the table, and it smells faintly of the chili Bill must’ve made for dinner. Bill puts a huge mug of peppermint tea in front of him, sitting down in the opposite chair.

“What happened?” Bill asks when Barnes has taken a sip from the steaming mug, curling his hands around the porcelain to soak up the warmth.

“Ruth escaped,” Barnes says after a couple of tries. Now the scare feels more silly than anything: every falconer loses their bird sometimes. But to Barnes, Ruth is more than just a bird; she’s an extension of himself, something that isn’t afraid of him anymore.

Bill makes a commiserating sound. “That’s always scary.”

“She wouldn’t come down,” Barnes says, swallowing, breathing in the peppermint steam. He still feels cold, like he’s just gotten out of the cryo chamber. “I-- I thought she’d never come back.”

“I get that,” Bill says. “The first time Mabel ran away, I almost cried because I was so afraid.” He regards Barnes for a while. “Are you okay? Is this about more than just Ruth?”

Barnes bites his lip, turns the mug slowly in his hands. “I wasn’t free for a long time,” he says then, hesitantly. “I would’ve understood her if-- if she never returned. I know how she must have felt, and I never want to go back.”

Bill makes a thoughtful sound, but doesn’t ask him to elaborate. They sit in silence, Barnes staring down at his mug, feeling Bill’s eyes on him.

“I was tortured,” Barnes says into the quiet room, because that’s what they did, isn’t it? They kept him for decades, breaking and building him back together the way they wanted, forcing him to do their bidding.

Bill blinks and looks at him for a few long seconds, then gets up to fetch a bottle of bourbon from the cabinet. He pours them both two finger-widths and puts the drink down in front of Barnes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bill asks as he takes a sip of his drink.

Barnes exchanges the tea cup for the glass, sloshing the bourbon around a little. “My arm,” he says finally, peeling off the glove and rolling his sleeve up. Bill tracks the movements and raises his eyebrows at the shiny metal. “That’s the first thing they took, and gave me this one instead.”

Bill inspects the arm, looking impressed. “That’s a fine piece of engineering.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what it’s done,” Barnes says bluntly, rolls his sleeve back down. Bill nods, but doesn’t pry.

“The second thing they took was my name and my agency,” Barnes continues, his voice quieting down to a murmur. “And the third was the--” he stumbles on his words a little, “the man I loved.”

He waits for the inevitable look of contempt and disgust, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Bill’s expression goes soft and sad, and he nods again, prompting Barnes to go on if he wants to.

“They wiped my memory,” Barnes says softly after taking a sip of the bourbon, “more than once.” It burns on the way down, warms his stomach. “I forgot about myself long before I forgot him. They told me he was dead, and I believed them and gave in.”

“That’d do it,” Bill says, tapping the side of his glass.

They’re quiet for a while, listening to the rain against the windowpane and the clock ticking on the wall. Upstairs, the floorboards squeak as Irina putters around, likely doing chores.

“But they lied,” Barnes says, and his voice sounds suddenly strangled, his throat tight around the words. Finding out how exactly Steve had survived all those years had felt like a punch in the gut when Barnes looked it up, and he still doesn’t like to think about it. Somehow, miraculously, Steve’s alive, and that’s the only thing Barnes wants to care about. “He wasn’t dead, and he found me.”

“That’s amazing,” Bill says, sounding genuinely happy. “Not everybody gets a second chance like that.” Then he takes in Barnes’s hunched posture and says carefully, “You don’t seem very excited about it.”

“That’s because I almost fucking killed him,” Barnes says bitterly, curls his metal fingers into a fist. “He was standing in the way of my orders and my programming, and I nearly killed him before I knew who he was.”

“I think that Captain Rogers would likely want you around anyway,” Bill says, and Barnes flinches violently, sloshing tea and bourbon on the table as he jerks back in horror.

“You--”

“Know who you are?” Bill asks. “Yeah, James. I taught history in high school for thirty years. It took me a while to figure out why you looked familiar, but it clicked eventually.”

“Who else knows?” Barnes asks in a shaky voice.

“Nobody, as far as I know,” Bill assures him. “I haven’t told anybody.”

Barnes shakes his head frantically and starts to get up. “I need to leave.”

“That’s up to you, Jamie,” Bill says, not raising his voice, and carefully puts his hand on top of Barnes’s left hand, like it would keep Barnes from leaving. “But nobody else here knows about you, and I’m not planning on telling them.” He tilts his head a little, watching Barnes with an open, honest expression. “And what about Ruth? _She_ needs you.”

“No,” Barnes snaps, “she’s better off without me. Don’t you see it? I’m doing the exact same thing to her as what was done to _me:_ trained to kill by orders, rewarded for being obedient. I’m _ruining_ her. I think that’s reason enough for me to let her go.”

“I think that you need to get over yourself,” Bill says, and Barnes halts, astonished. He stares at Bill’s calm expression and the hand that’s lightly resting on his metal hand, rendered speechless.

“You and Ruth are not the same entity,” Bill tells him, staring into Barnes’s eyes with rare stubbornness. “She is a raptor, a predator from birth, and without you she would still be killing for her food. You are a human being, and horrifying things were done to you. But without the people who made you do them, you aren’t made to kill. Without them, you’re the man who gives piggyback rides to my grandchildren, helps Matthew in his café, and loves that goddamn bird like your own child.”

Barnes swallows, slumps down in the chair. When Bill pulls back, Barnes puts his hands to his face to hide the tears that are threatening to spill out. “Why are you so kind to me?” He asks, choked up.

“Because you deserve it,” Bill says, matter-of-fact. “It might sound strange to you because only you know your own history, but I think you deserve it. Everybody does.”

Barnes doesn’t know what to reply to that. Bill gets up and fetches a rag to wipe the spilled drinks. His eyes are sad in the yellow light.

It’s been almost nine months since Barnes ran away, leaving barely breathing Steve on the riverbank. He’s spent that time trying to figure out who he is, and actively trying to tell himself that remembering that Steve loved him doesn’t matter, because Barnes can never be that person again.

But _fuck,_ how hard he wishes he could be, just to be able to go back to Steve. Barnes might not remember everything, but he remembers steady, long-fingered hands, and shoulders hunched protectively over him; he remembers feeling safe; he remembers feeling like he was the most important person in the whole universe for somebody.

“I miss Steve,” Barnes says in a small voice, curling up in the chair, as tight as he can pack himself, pressing his face into his knees. “I miss him a lot.”

“Yeah, kid,” Bill says as he puts a gentle hand on Barnes’s back, and his voice is tinged with sympathy. “Yeah.”

The winter passes slowly. Barnes gets a stubborn cold in late January, and that’s almost exhilarating: he’d thought he would never get sick again, thanks to the B-grade super soldier serum he got back in 1943. The cold feels like a testament that he’s still human; that he’s still fallible, and at least a little fragile like the rest of the world.

He thinks about Steve a lot when he’s huddled up under several blankets, burning with fever and coughing his lungs out. His brain - even after all the scrambling - still associates illness with Steve, and while Irina is mothering him through his misery like there’s no tomorrow, he can’t help but yearn for Steve, for Steve’s calloused palms and relentless but good-humored bitching about every tiny request Bucky croaked out to him.

He still loves Steve, that is certain; he wouldn’t be craving for him this much otherwise. In his suffocatingly warm, illness-smelling nest it’s easy to admit to himself that the gaping, painful void inside him is Steve’s absence; a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

After the fall of SHIELD, Barnes followed Steve and his friends around Europe enough to see what kind of a man Steve is now; older and more jaded, a shadow of war permanently branded on his face - the kind of man the shell of James Barnes could still want. But what Steve is chasing (a ghost, a memory, hope) is a completely different matter altogether.

He could let Steve know where he is. He could email; he could find out Steve’s number and send a text; hell, he could buy a fucking _Greetings from Maine!_ postcard and write the return address on it. But would it be worth it - if Steve came up from D.C., with an aching heart and a head full of expectations, only to see that whoever he was wishing to find isn’t there. Would it be worth it, Barnes thinks, bitter and feeling sorry for himself, to have Steve rush here, only to lose him as soon as he figured out Barnes - Jamie - whatever he should be calling himself now - isn’t what he wants anymore.

 _You never know,_ argues his traitorous heart. _You know better,_ says his feverish brain.

He lets it lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bible quote is from Ruth 1:16-17, English Standard Version.


	4. Chapter 4

Maine in February is cold, and unfairly pretty under the snow, but at least the roads have been plowed. Sam needs to check Google Maps at least seven times after leaving the interstate and starting to navigate the web of highways and country roads, because Mariyam’s directions that were attached to the wedding invite are _absolute crap,_ and Sam’s happily forgotten the way since he last visited.

He spent the night in Amesbury, Massachusetts, paying an arm and a leg for a crappy motel room just down from the I-95, and his back is aching from the lousy bed and sitting in the car. Long-distance driving fucking _sucks,_ but the closest airport is still over an hour’s drive away from Mariyam’s parents’ house, and Sam hates the Reagan airport in D.C. even more than the interstate.

It’s worth it, though, when he finally parks in front of a spacious two-story bungalow a little outside of the town center, gets out of the car, and Mariyam’s nephews bang their way through the front door, yelling, “Sam! Sam!”

“Hey!” Sam says, laughing, picking up Dominic, the older one, and swinging him around in the air. “Hey hey hey, look at you, you’ve gotten tall!”

“Me too,” Isaac insists, tugging on the leg of Sam’s pants.

Sam puts Dominic down and picks Isaac up. He’s still small enough to be thrown, squealing with laughter when Sam tosses him into the air a little.

“Boys!” Mariyam’s sister bursts through the door and slips on the porch, because she’s wearing her house slippers. “Melon-farmer,” she swears, and Sam almost bursts out laughing. Man, he’d forgotten about the imaginative not-cursing. “What have I told you, you can’t just run out like th-- Oh, hi Sam.”

“Hey Alicia,” Sam says, grinning, as he pulls his garment bag and duffel from the backseat, and starts herding the kids back to the porch. “Good to see you.”

“You too,” Alicia says, then looks down and groans. “Dominic, Isaac, please don’t tell me you ran out _without shoes.”_

“Um,” Dominic says. He’s almost seven, and usually too smart for his own good.

“My feet are cold,” little Isaac says, and Sam laughs all the way into the house.

The rest of Mariyam’s family greets him warmly: Sam’s been a frequent guest after he and Mariyam got back from Afghanistan, but due to the superhero business he hasn’t had time to come over since early August.

It’s gonna be a small wedding: just a couple of friends and Mariyam’s and Jacob’s immediate family, most of them residing in the surrounding areas and driving down on the wedding day. Sam is glad to be there; closed into that warm circle of family, hidden away from the real world and the new responsibilities he has now. He sees his own family way too rarely, he realizes, when Dominic and Isaac tug him into the kitchen, yelling, “Grandpa, Grandpa, Sam’s here!”

“You look better, son,” Bill says as he shakes Sam’s hand, eyeing him. His voice is gentle. “Time’s done its trick, huh?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says, softly, because it’s true: he’s done a lot of introspection after Steve came into his life and brought his undead boyfriend with him. It’s surprisingly easy to push his own stuff to the back when Steve needs him.

“Grandpa,” Dominic interrupts, trying to hang from Bill’s forearm, “is Jamie coming for lunch too?”

“No, sweetheart,” Bill says, stroking Dominic’s dark hair. “Remember how I told you at Christmas that Jamie doesn’t like it when there’s lots of people in one room? He and Ruth went to stay in town with Matthew until Sunday.”

Dominic’s mouth turns down into an unhappy frown. “But I like him,” he says. “Why doesn’t he like people, Grandpa?”

“Some people just are like that, and they have the right to be,” Bill says. “But I know for sure that he likes you boys a lot, too.” When he catches Sam’s lost expression, he explains, “Jamie is our tenant, he lives above the garage.”

“He hurt his arm,” Dominic says. “But he keeps Ruth on it now, so it’s okay!”

“It’s okay,” Isaac nearly yells. “He’s super strong!”

That… doesn’t ease Sam’s confusion at all.

“He’s a veteran,” Bill supplies. “The boys love him, because he can do push-ups with them sitting on his back. Ruth is a hawk.”

“Did you start with your falconry stories already?” Mariyam asks, amused, and then she’s stepping into the kitchen, looking radiant with happiness. “He corrupted Jamie,” she says to Sam, but her voice is fond. “That’s my dad for you: met a jittery vet, and thought that giving him a hawk would fix it.”

“Hey,” Bill protests, but he’s smiling. “I had a hunch, and I was right.”

Mariyam rolls her eyes at him, and then gestures at Sam. “C’mere and gimme a hug, Wilson, I haven’t seen your big butt since the summer.”

Sam laughs as he scoops her up in a bone-crushing hug. “Hey, Yam-yam,” he says, and Mariyam pinches him for the awful nickname. “Congratulations.”

“Heck yes, I’m getting married tomorrow,” Mariyam says, beaming at him when they part. “Come on, I’ll show you to the guest room, and then I want to hear what you’ve been up to.”

Jacob’s parents and two grandparents arrive in the afternoon with his sister and brother-in-law, and for the dinner there’s already fifteen of them crammed in the dining room, talking over each other, passing dishes around. It almost feels like Thanksgiving, and Sam can understand why Bill and Irina’s tenant might have opted out from the wedding. It’s a little suffocating even for him, and he’s got a huge family of his own and is used to this kind of chaos.

He sleeps like a log in the guest room, even if he’s rudely awakened by Dominic and Isaac slamming their way into his room at the asscrack of dawn, demanding him to get up and come watch cartoons with them. He drags his duvet and pillow to the living room, slumps on the couch and proceeds to sleep for two more hours while the kids are glued to the television. It’s probably the least he can do - pretending to look after the boys - to thank the family for giving him a place to stay.

Isaac worms his way under the blanket at some point, crawling into Sam’s arms. He’s warm and smells like sleep, and Sam’s heart breaks a little with affection for the kid. He squeezes Isaac closer and goes back to sleep until it’s time for breakfast.

The wedding is beautiful, and refreshingly small, almost understated in comparison to some huge fairytale weddings Sam’s attended in the past. There’s maybe thirty guests in total, and the whole celebration feels tight and intimate, filled with warmth.

It’s snowing lightly when they walk to the town’s church for the ceremony, but when it’s over and the newlyweds are stepping out, the sun peeks out from the clouds like it had been scheduled. Sam gets a really damn good photo of them for his Instagram.

This is the happy ending he’s always wished for Mariyam, he thinks on the way back to the house, ever since she was rushed out of Afghanistan, missing her right leg down from the knee. She’s gone through a lot - they both have gone through a lot, with all the friends and the pieces of themselves they lost - and seeing her so happy, so full of life again, makes him believe that he, too - definitely, _definitely_ \- will be all right.

The party goes on in the Meadows house for the whole night, and when Sam finally crawls into his bed, a bit more than tipsy, he’s full and content and almost ready to swear that this tiny town in Maine makes miracles.

It also might be Irina’s home-made wine speaking.

Sam goes out for a walk in the afternoon, when his hangover has let up a little. The snow is crunching under his feet, and his breath is misty puffs in the frigid air, but the cold feels refreshing after being cooped up inside for the whole day. He follows the road into town: it’s Sunday, so most of the shops are closed, but there’s a small café that’s open, and he goes in to warm his toes and grab some coffee.

“I’m staying with the Meadows family,” he tells the old man manning the place, watching the coffee being poured into a takeaway cup. “Can I cross the fields and end up back at their place?”

“Sure,” the man says, smiling. “Cream or sugar?” Sam shakes his head. “There’s a footpath that goes from the corner of the pub over the hills and joins the road near Bill and Irina’s house. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Sam says, hands over a handful of quarters for his coffee. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“No problem,” the man says, eyes twinkling. “If you see Jamie, tell him that Matthew has some onions for him.”

Sam nods, a little perplexed when the cafékeeper and a handful of other customers laugh at the line like it’s a great joke. _Country people,_ he thinks when he leaves the shop. _They’re supposed to be a little weird._

It’s indeed impossible to miss the footpath that turns towards the low hills. It hasn’t been plowed, but there’s been enough traffic that the snow is tightly packed and easy to walk on. Sam strolls on, sipping his coffee, and admiring the sparkle of the snow whenever a sunbeam passes through the clouds.

The path loops up and down the sloping hills. Even though it’s a beautiful day, the fields are deserted, until Sam crosses the bridge over a small, frozen creek, and spots a man ahead, not far away from him, left hand raised up in a fist. It looks like he’s making some weird salute, but then he whistles, loud and clear. Something fast and jingling swoops past Sam, and he ducks a little on instinct. When he straightens, he realizes that what he took for a miniature Santa sleigh was actually a hawk, now perched on the guy’s fist.

 

 

The hawk shakes itself, then jumps up to the man’s shoulder, shifts a little on its feet to find a comfortable position. This must be the guy Bill has been teaching, Sam realizes as he gets closer. Falconry likely isn’t that popular a hobby for there to be others around. “Hey,” he calls. “You Jamie?”

He isn’t prepared when the guy turns around, and Sam finds himself staring James motherfucking Barnes in the eye.

Barnes looks good: he’s not as gaunt as Sam remembers from the HYDRA files, and while he’s still slender, he’s red-cheeked from the cold and looks healthy as a horse. He’s wearing a dark snowsuit and a pair of heavy boots, and his long hair is spilling out from under a hand-knitted beanie that has Irina’s handiwork written all over it. The hawk is sitting on his left shoulder, and his metal hand is hidden under a thick falconer’s glove.

They blink at each other for a bit. Sam has no idea if Barnes recognizes him - they didn’t exactly stop to chit-chat when Barnes was still actively trying to kill Steve, Natasha, and Sam. It’s possible, though, if Barnes had been tracking their wild goose chase across Europe.

“Yeah,” Barnes says then. His voice is a little rusty. “Why?”

“Uh,” Sam says, floundering a little. “The guy in the café says that Matthew has some onions for you.”

Barnes’s mouth ticks up in a smile, like he gets the joke. Motherfucking _country people._ “Ah. Sure.”

They eyeball each other a little more, and the hawk jumps from Barnes’s shoulder back onto his fist with a muffled _thunk,_ peers closer at Sam. Sam nearly sweats under the scrutiny, both from Barnes and the hawk on his arm, or maybe it’s just the hangover speaking.

“You’re Steve’s friend,” Barnes says then, clipping a short leash to the strips of leather tied to the hawk's ankles.

Sam nods, and Barnes purses his mouth, looking thoughtful and a little wary. “How did you find me?” He glances around like he’s expecting Steve to burst out from a snowbank.

“By accident,” Sam says, honestly. His eyes keep straying to the bird. It’s scary as fuck up close, and absolutely gorgeous. “I came for my friend’s wedding. She’s Bill and Irina’s daughter.”

Barnes pets the hawk absently, like it doesn’t have a razor-sharp beak, terrifying talons, and a thousand-yard stare. “Right. Mariyam. She’s nice. Her sister, too.”

“Yup,” Sam agrees, turning the empty coffee cup in his hands. He feels very, very awkward. There wasn’t a single page in his How To Handle Steve Rogers handbook about How To Handle Steve Rogers’s Vintage Boyfriend, and Sam feels out of his depth. He’d assumed that if they ever found Barnes, he might be half-feral, violent, or a broken man clawing his way out of a dark pit. Nothing’s prepared him to meet Jamie Barnes: somebody born from the ruins of Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier, clearly standing on his own two feet.

 

 

 

Steve is gonna flip.

“This is Ruth,” Barnes says and chucks the hawk under her chin. She makes a weird crooning noise, and Sam realizes that she must be just a baby, happy to get attention. “She’s a northern goshawk.”

“Uh, hi Ruth,” Sam says, feeling like an idiot.

Barnes snorts a little in amusement. He feels around in his pocket and pulls out a receipt, crumpling it in his right hand. Ruth perks up at the sound of the crinkling paper, and when Barnes offers the ball to her, she pokes and bites at it, turning her head upside down so that her beak is pointing at the sky, then crinkles the receipt more with her beak. She looks like she’s enjoying the crunching sound the paper makes, and Sam thinks about all the videos he’s seen of baby tigers horsing around. Ruth’s astonishingly similar to them: a deadly carnivore, playing with a thing that makes a funny noise.

“How’s Steve,” Barnes asks as he’s entertaining Ruth. His tone is light, airy, but when Sam looks closer, his jaw is tight, betraying how much he wants to hear the answer.

Sam shrugs. “Breathing,” he says. It probably says all that’s important; Sam doesn’t want to lie, but he also doesn’t know how to tell Barnes about the lack of spark in Steve’s eyes, the tired slope of his shoulders.

Barnes bites his lip, looks down at his bird again. In the gloomy winter light he looks young and a little unsure with his sharp, clean-shaven jaw and prominent cheekbones. “That’s good, at least,” he says, hesitates a little like he wants to say something more but decides against it.

“He’s still looking for you, you know,” Sam says. “He hasn’t given up on you.”

“Yeah,” Barnes says softly. “I was gonna let him find me, eventually. But stuff happened, I got stuck here, and-- Well.” He shrugs.

“Looks like you’ve carved a place for yourself,” Sam points out, and Barnes smiles. It transforms his face, and for a short five seconds Sam can see the resemblance to the man in Steve’s sketchbook; imagine a playfully cocked hat on his head instead of a knitted beanie.

“They have been good to me,” Barnes agrees. Ruth gets bored with the wad of paper and shuffles a little on the glove. Barnes puts the receipt back into his pocket and pets her.

“Can I tell Steve that I met you?” Sam asks then, watching how easily Barnes scritches the hawk under her chin. Ruth preens, wiggling happily and shaking her feathers.

“Yeah,” Barnes says after a lengthy silence, biting his lip again. He doesn’t meet Sam’s eye. “Why not.”

“Are you gonna run?” Sam asks pointedly, because he really wouldn’t put it past Barnes to haul ass out of town before Steve got there, no matter what he said about letting Steve catch him.

Barnes looks up, and his expression is suddenly nonplussed, like Sam is an idiot for asking. He strokes Ruth’s spotted breast, shakes his head, and turns towards the way Sam came. “No,” he says as he starts to walk away, “I have a hawk to fly, and some onions to chop.”

When Sam gets back to the house, he finds Bill in the garage, where he’s doing something that involves tanned leather and way too many sharp tools.

“Hey Sam,” Bill says, looking up as Sam enters, then takes in whatever expression is on Sam’s face. “Everything good? Are you leaving?”

“I saw your tenant,” Sam blurts. “Out on the fields.”

Bill nods. “He’s usually out with Ruth around this time of day.”

Sam stares at him. Bill is cool as a cucumber about their tenant, but Sam knows that he’s been a history teacher for decades, and it’s fucking _impossible_ that Bill wouldn’t have picked up Barnes’s identity. To others ‘Jamie’ might just carry a striking resemblance to a long-dead war hero, but Bill’s been staring at the Howling Commandos’ photos in his books for years, and Barnes has a fairly memorable face. Bill also definitely knows that Sam hangs out with Captain America both for work and on his free time.

“Um,” Sam says, trying to get the confirmation without accidentally revealing the truth, just in case Bill somehow _hasn’t_ figured it out. “He looks really familiar.”

Bill puts down whatever he’s making, and turns properly to look at Sam. His expression is suddenly grave, almost stern. “Sam,” he says. “Don’t fuck it up for him.”

“So you know?”

“Of course,” Bill says, exasperated. “But Jamie’s a good kid and he’s been working hard to earn this life and his peace. I’ll be damned if I let somebody ruin it for him.”

“I’m not looking to ruin anything,” Sam assures, hands raised placatingly. “But I’ll have to tell Steve. Barnes gave me permission.”

“That kid misses Captain Rogers a lot,” Bill says, and his tone has softened significantly. “Maybe you’re the kick he needs to reach out.”

“Maybe,” Sam agrees. Bill picks up his project again, and silence falls. Then Sam says, “Steve’s likely gonna come up as soon as I tell him. He’s-- kind of nuts about Barnes.”

“They need to figure it out,” Bill says. “All I want is to see Jamie happy, and if Captain Rogers is a key to that, he’s more than welcome under my roof.” He gets up from his chair, comes over and sticks his hand out for Sam to shake. “Have a safe drive back. Give me a call when he’s coming.”

“I will,” Sam says. “Thank you, sir.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” Bill says. “Come back when you can. And stay away from any aliens.”

When Sam opens the front door and trudges in, it’s already late, but the light in the kitchen is on, so Steve must be home. Sam is exhausted from all the driving: he had cut the journey in half just to make the 12-hour drive more bearable, and spent the night in New York City, but the interstate is still hell. It had been good to see Natasha, holed up in the Avengers Tower - she’s been flying under radar for past months, and Sam hadn’t realized how much he had missed her wry humor and sly eyes until she was there again.

More and more, he’s starting to consider moving up to the city. If he knows Steve at all, it’s fairly likely that Steve will go up north after Barnes and never come back, and Sam is getting really fed up with D.C. The thought of living alone is a lot less appealing now that he’s had steady human contact for months, even if that contact was Steve’s tired, broody ass.

Steve’s sitting at the kitchen table, eyes closed and head tipped back. He’s wearing a long-sleeved undershirt and sweatpants, looking as exhausted as Sam feels, and he’s sporting a beard - a little scruffy, not groomed properly. It makes him different, almost unfamiliar, and it’s even harder to remember that under all those muscles Steve’s barely thirty, aged long before his time.

“Hey,” Sam says. “You’re back.”

Steve opens his eyes and sits up, groaning. He looks like he’s taken a beating and Sam feels a flash of sympathy. Two weeks in god knows where weeding out old HYDRA bases must have taken its toll; the emotional baggage Sam knows Steve’s carting around probably doesn’t make it any easier.

“Hey,” Steve says. His voice is scratchy from lack of use. “How was the trip?”

“Good,” Sam replies and busies himself with looking around for a clean glass, opening the fridge, and pouring himself some water. “The wedding was really nice. Mariyam’s nephews are growing like weeds, I swear they were at least two feet taller than the last time I saw them.”

Steve laughs a little. “That’s kids for you,” he says, fondly.

Sam sits down opposite Steve and frowns. “What’s with the bush on your face?”

“Oh.” Steve drags a hand down his cheek, rubs his chin. “Didn’t have time to shave. I kinda like it, now that the prickly phase is over.”

“It sure makes you look closer to your actual age,” Sam says solemnly, making Steve huff a laugh.

They sit in silence for a while. Steve closes his eyes and leans back again, balancing on the hind legs of his chair; and Sam drinks his water, watching the tired lines on Steve’s face. The weight of information is heavy on his shoulders.

Sam knows he should’ve called Steve to tell the news as soon as he got back to the Meadows’ house, but something held him back. He’d tried to justify delaying it by telling himself that Steve was on a mission and the news about Barnes might compromise it - but the truth was that he didn’t really know how to drop the bomb. To him, something this huge needed to be relayed in person, and the time it took him to figure out how also gave Barnes a couple of days to prepare for the inevitable reunion.

But now that he’s looking at Steve and seeing how thin his friend is stretched, he’s suddenly unsure again, doubting his own motives. Maybe he just really wanted one more night of this: coming back home to a friend instead of a dark, empty house.

“Steve,” he starts finally, and stops, not sure how to continue.

Steve makes a questioning sound, but doesn’t open his eyes. The silence stretches on, oppressive and poignant.

Then Sam puts his glass down, takes a deep breath and says, “I found him.”

Steve’s whole body goes tense, and his chair hits the floor with a muffled _thunk._ “What?”

“I found him,” Sam repeats. “By accident.”

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again, looking for something to say. The hope on his face is almost painful to watch; how all traces of exhaustion and sorrow smooth out with just the mention of his friend. If Sam didn’t know it already, he would’ve guessed just from this reaction that Steve was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Barnes.

“How is he?” Steve asks, and his voice is small, vulnerable. “You talked to him?”

“He’s good,” Sam says honestly. “Really good. He lives above the garage of Mariyam’s parents. They call him Jamie.”

Steve chokes out a sob and raises a hand over his eyes. “Jamie,” he murmurs. “That’s what his ma used to call him.”

They are quiet for a while; Steve’s huge shoulders are trembling, and while Sam wants to lean over and put a hand on his arm, he knows to give Steve space. The grief inside Steve has been so vast, so deep, so overpowering, and Sam knows exactly what that's like, so he stays put and lets Steve pull himself together.

“Did he--” Steve swallows, brushes his fingers through his beard, trying to regain his footing. “Did he ask about me?”

Sam shrugs awkwardly. “Yeah. I can’t say how much he remembers, but seemed like a lot. He’s settled in well, struts around the fields looking like a modern-day Heathcliff. Tamed a fucking _goshawk,_ like having a metal arm isn’t dramatic enough.”

Steve blinks, blinks again, and then he cracks a smile, laughing breathlessly. “Motherfucker,” he says, but he looks alarmingly close to tears, still, and Sam pretends not to see him knuckle the wetness from his eyes.

It’s been almost a year since Steve literally ran into his life, and Sam’s been watching him spiral further and further into exhaustion for nearly as long. If he’s honest, he didn’t think Steve would last this long, but duty is a strange, powerful motivation, even when Steve seemed to have given up on caring. Steve might have kept on, had Barnes been broken like Sam assumed he would be, powering over his own problems to help his friend.

But Barnes doesn’t seem to need help, and maybe it’s time for Steve to put the shield down and take a goddamn break for once.

Sam leans in, touching Steve’s hand. “He wants to see you,” he says softly. “I think he misses you just as much as you him.”

Steve’s throat works in a way that’s almost painful to watch, as he struggles to swallow. “That’s a helluva lot of missing,” he says, voice wobbly.

“Yeah, and that guy’s best friends are crazy-ass country people and a _hawk,”_ Sam counters. “I’d start missing your hideous face too, if I were him.”

Steve barks out a laugh, covers his face with his hands again. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says, muffled.

“Groom your beard before you go,” Sam says to cover the clench of his heart at the thought of not being constantly around his best friend anymore. “You look like a disheveled lumberjack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **slams fist on the table** BEARDED STEVE ROGERS 2K17
> 
> Also pls don't be showy assholes like Barnes and let twitchy-taloned raptors jump onto your shoulders, lol.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a brief mention of suicide ideation in the first scene.
> 
>  _I was solid gold_  
>  _I was in the fight_  
>  _I was coming back from what seemed like a ruin_  
>  _I couldn't see you coming so far_  
>  _I just turn around and there you are_  
>   
>  The National: Pink Rabbits

The night feels long.

Steve should go to bed; it’s late and he’s been up for almost 21 hours, but sleep is evading him. Sam’s already asleep, knocked out by the long drive, and if Steve strains his ears he can hear him snore across the hall. He gets up and goes downstairs to the kitchen, avoiding the creaky parts in the stairs and the corner of the dresser he always stubs his toe on. In the kitchen he clicks the kettle on to make tea, digs out a mug and the box of tea bags Sam keeps solely for guests.

Bucky’s in Maine.

Steve touches the back of the chair he usually sits in, strokes the worn wood. He had been sitting in this chair just hours before his whole world had been upended by Bucky literally blasting into it with his guns and his haunted eyes. He was sitting in this chair when it happened again merely an hour ago, but this time with hope instead of heartbreak.

The kettle finishes boiling and clicks itself off, startling him. His hands shake as he pours the hot water and stirs in a spoonful of honey, creating a small whirlpool of bergamot-smelling steam. His bare feet are cold against the unheated floor.

Bucky’s in Maine, and he’s doing well, and that’s something palpable, a clear shard of hope Steve can hold onto. He’s been looking for Bucky for so long, and had nearly given up, ready to accept that maybe Bucky didn’t want to be found.

But he does, had told Sam so. Steve tries to imagine what their happenstance meeting might’ve been like; tries to imagine how Bucky might’ve looked in his new home. Would he have cut his hair? What kind of clothes does he favor? Does he look happy?

Sam said he’d tamed a hawk, but Steve can’t really picture that. It’s too strange a concept as it is, but not hard to believe that Bucky would be kind to the bird. Bucky’s always been kind to those nobody else has: strangers, stray animals, and beaten-up boys in schoolyards.

Steve sits down in his chair, trying to set the scalding mug down without spilling it, leaning his forearms on the table. He’s driving up north tomorrow, already booked himself a rental car, and Sam promised to call his friend’s parents to let them know Steve is coming. Bucky is _so close,_ finally within reach of his hands, a second chance to hold on, and Steve closes his eyes, pillowing his head on his arms.

Maybe it goes like this: maybe he knocks on Bucky’s door, his heart in his hands. Maybe Bucky lets him in, and they are stilted, awkward, not sure how to act around each other again, and they never find the sync they used to have before. Steve comes back to his team with his tail between his legs, and maybe doesn’t try as hard to not get himself killed when the next catastrophe comes.

But maybe Bucky comes out to the yard to meet him, lets Steve put his arms around him and hold him close for the first time in years; perhaps he’s got new angles that don’t fit well against Steve’s, but they try anyway, and somehow make it work. Perhaps Bucky doesn’t mind a hand on his hip, a nose in his hair, fleeting, casual touches here and there while Steve tries to work out that he’s real.

After Steve got him out back in 1943, Bucky didn’t really let himself be touched anymore. At first he downright recoiled from it, understandable after what he’d gone through, but even as time passed he never again sought physical contact like he used to. He shied away from Steve’s tentative hands, tense and a little wary, and closed his door in Steve’s face the only time he came knocking.

Steve didn’t try again after that, his heart like pieces of shrapnel in his chest. Bucky didn’t want him anymore and that was _fine,_ he could accept it and move on like a man, and Peggy _had_ already caught his eye like a force of nature. In retrospect, it’s ridiculous that he didn’t realize that Bucky was-- not jealous, but that he’d given up on him, like Steve wasn’t something he deserved. Like Bucky had been good enough long ago, before the war, but not once he’d been marked by it.

But maybe now--

Steve doesn’t dare to hope for much. He hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s going to actually do once Bucky’s there in the flesh, but whatever happens, he wishes for a chance to just. Just.

He inhales shakily, mouth twisting. Whatever happens, he’s gonna tell the truth. Bucky can do whatever he wants with it, and Steve’s gonna take whatever he can get.

He falls asleep like that, at the kitchen table, the tea forgotten next to his head.

“I’m not sure when I’m coming back,” Steve says as they’re standing on the curb in front of Sam’s house, next to the rental car. It’s nearly seven p.m. and he’s spent the day trying to tie loose ends and packing his stuff, getting more warm clothes to brave the northeast winter.

He’s even groomed his goddamn beard; he wasn’t lying when he said that he liked it, and it might throw people off a little, make him less recognizable. Privately, he’s sick and tired of seeing his own face and having it covered helps. His clean-shaven face has been government property for over seventy years, and the beard is something that is his, and his only.

“I know,” Sam says, and they both know what Steve actually means. _I’m not sure if I’m coming back_ hangs in the air as Steve bends down and picks up the circular bag resting against his feet.

“Take care of this for me, okay?”

Sam nods, hoisting the shield bag over his shoulder. “Not gonna need it?”

Steve shakes his head. Sam’s mouth ticks up in a smile, and then he gestures at him to get closer, pulling him into a hug. “Good luck, Steve.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve chokes out against Sam’s shoulder. “For everything.”

“Go get your boy,” Sam says, but there’s a slight wobble in his voice, too. “Call me when you can, so I know you didn’t get stuck in the snow in Bumfuck Nowhere.”

“Yeah.” Steve breathes in deeply, squeezes Sam just a bit and steps back. His throat feels tight, even though he knows they’ll see each other again sooner or later. “I’ll call.”

Sam’s eyes are shiny. “I might head up to New York in the spring,” he says, trying for casual. “Another summer on this swamp doesn’t really tempt me.”

“That’s good,” Steve agrees. “Say hi to Natasha for me.”

Sam slugs him in the shoulder. It’s not a bad goodbye.

When Steve pulls up in front of the house, it’s late morning. He’s been driving through the night, too anxious to get to Maine to stop for some sleep, and still he’s not tired, his body pushing him forward without complaint.

A man comes to the yard when Steve gets out of the car: Mariyam’s father, Bill, from Sam’s description. He’s in his late sixties, tanned and weather-beaten, dressed in a parka and a pair of winter boots, and he extends a hand towards Steve as soon as he gets close enough.

“Captain Rogers,” he says. “It’s an honor. I’m Bill Meadows, Sam called to let us know you were coming.”

“Thank you,” Steve says as he shakes the man’s hand. “I’m happy to meet you. Sam’s been talking about Mariyam and her family a lot.”

Bill smiles. “I would invite you in for a cup of coffee, but I think you might have something else on your mind.”

Steve huffs a laugh, rueful. “Yeah,” he says, carding a hand through his hair. It’s gotten longer, desperately in need of a cut. “I’d like to see him, if that’s fine.”

Bill nods, clapping him on the shoulder. “He’s out, but I can show you the way, it’s not far.” He eyes Steve, like checking that he’s dressed for the weather, then gestures towards the road. “Come with me.”

They leave the yard and start up the road, snow crunching under their feet. It’s incredibly quiet, only a distant dog or car interrupting the silence, and Steve feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin with nerves.

“Jamie is very dear to us,” Bill says slowly as they walk. “Be honest with him. That’s all I’m asking.”

Steve nods, something heavy and hopeful in his throat. “I know,” he says. “I will. Thank you for taking him in.”

Bill snorts. “That’s not something you should thank us for. He did it all himself.” They stop where a small footpath parts from the main road, leading up a low slope, and Bill points towards it. “Go over the hill. You’ll probably hear them before you see them.”

“Thank you,” Steve says again, and Bill mock salutes him and turns to head back to the house.

Sure enough, when Steve’s climbing up the footpath, the silence of the countryside is broken by a faint jingling of bells. He quickens his pace, his heart beating faster, fluttering like a hummingbird.

In the end, it goes like this.

Bucky’s crouching in the snow on the other side of the hill. He’s wearing a dark grey snowsuit, scratched leather padding sewn to its shoulders, and a wildly-colored beanie is half-stuffed into his utility belt, leaving his thick braided hair exposed and messy from the hat. In the snow in front of him sits the hawk: a mixture of brown and white, with yellow eyes, jumping up and down around a pheasant carcass, tearing pieces from it.

As Steve gets closer, Bucky successfully distracts the hawk, scoops the carcass into a plastic bag, and stuffs it in a large pocket of his snow suit. Then he looks up, likely hearing the approaching footsteps.

Somehow Steve had actually managed to forget that Bucky’s presence has always hit him like a sack of bricks.

In the noon light, Bucky’s eyes are pale and luminous, and he looks so much like his ghost in Steve’s memory that Steve halts, stunned. But the longer he looks, the more he sees that the man in front of him isn’t the confident boy who said goodbye to him in 1943, or the bitter, exhausted man he found again months later, nor the dead-eyed soldier pointing a gun at him aboard the Helicarrier. There are tiny crow’s feet in the corners of Bucky’s eyes, and his cheekbones look more refined, the last of that persistent baby fat finally melted off. His cheeks and the tip of his nose are pink from the cold, and he looks good; like he’s at peace.

They stare at each other for a while, and then Bucky glances down, takes the hawk up on his fist, and slowly stands up. “Hi Steve,” he says, eyes roaming Steve’s face and body, like he can’t believe he’s real. Steve knows how he feels; he’s drinking Bucky in greedily as well, like he could disappear any given moment.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, but his voice is thick and a little strangled, almost dazed.

Bucky takes a couple of steps towards him, stalls for a bit, then comes closer again, biting his lip. He reaches out with his right hand, hesitant and curling his fingers back in just before they reach Steve’s cheek, but Steve grabs his hand, presses it against his face. Bucky’s wearing a woolen glove, and it’s warm and a little prickly as he swipes his thumb slowly across Steve’s beard.

 

 

“I don’t remember ever seeing you with a beard,” Bucky says then, just short of a whisper, and Steve barks out a wet laugh. His hands feel chilly in the cold, but the rest of his body is burning, like all the blood in him is rushing madly around to get up to his cheek, desperate to be closer to Bucky. It leaves him light-headed, dizzy.

“Well,” he says, and his voice breaks a little, “it’s a new century.”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs and steps even closer, his left arm angled to the side to keep the hawk out of the way. He looks mesmerized, mouth slack and parted, like touching Steve is something he’s experiencing for the first time.

Steve puts his hand on Bucky’s waist, hesitating, but he exhales, sagging a little, and Steve tightens his hold as much as he dares, his fingers flexing like they can’t decide if it’s a particularly vivid hallucination. Bucky shifts, pushes his cold nose against Steve’s cheek, his eyelashes brushing the skin like a kiss.

“Hi,” Bucky says again, and he sounds almost breathless, giddy; his mouth curving helplessly. He’s radiating warmth, bundled up in his layers.

Steve feels detached, distant even though he’s so close; like he’s looking at Bucky through a magnifying glass. He opens his mouth but can’t figure out what to say, and for a long moment they just stand there, more or less petrified.

“Let’s go back,” Bucky murmurs then. “You look tired.” He pulls back, touch trailing from Steve’s cheek to his chin, and turns his attention to the hawk. It’s eyeing Steve curiously, head cocked to the side. “Come on, Ruth, let’s go home.”

He’s named the hawk _Ruth,_ like a friend; a companion.

Steve has to let go of Bucky. He sticks his hands into his pockets because they’re cold and he doesn’t know what to do with them, and fiddles a piece of lint that’s rolling around in his coat pocket. They walk back in silence, Ruth swaying easily with the movement of Bucky’s fist, staring at Steve. Steve himself nearly falls on his face several times because he can’t stop staring at Bucky.

Back at the Meadows’ yard, Bucky leads them in through a door in the garage extension and turns on the light. There’s another goshawk sleeping on its perch on the other side of the room; it opens one, strikingly red eye to glance at them before going back to sleep. It’s clearly older, grey instead of brown, and larger in size.

“That’s Mabel,” Bucky says, takes off his woolen glove with his teeth and starts switching the short leather straps attached to her anklets for longer ones. “She’s Bill’s hawk. Ruth is technically his, too.”

“Technically?” Steve asks.

Bucky shrugs, waits until Ruth has hopped on her perch before pulling off the falconer’s glove and tying her to the perch swiftly, expertly. “She’s his on paper, but I train and fly her. Easier like that.” He chucks Ruth under her chin, scritching a little, and she shakes her feathers, loose and happy. Steve watches, fascinated.

Bucky tosses the falconry glove on a side table, unclips his utility belt and hangs it on a hook on the wall. “Come on,” he says, and they go through a door to the garage, pause to drop the pheasant off in a fridge to wait for plucking. It feels like Steve’s in a dream, following Bucky like the ghost of Christmas as he goes through his daily life.

Bucky leads the way up the stairs to a small apartment above the garage. It’s simply furnished but cluttered in a way that makes it look lived in: a magazine lying on the couch, dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, a row of books lined on the tv stand. Bucky toes off his winter boots, unzips the snowsuit and unwinds the scarf from around his neck, peels off the outer layers like he’s shedding his skin. It's warm in the apartment, and Steve's glad to take off his coat.

"Coffee?" Bucky asks as he hangs up the snowsuit and heads to the open-plan kitchen without waiting for an answer. He's wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved thermal undershirt, and leaning a little to the right from his waist, like the metal arm is pulling him to the left and he's trying to compensate for it. It makes him look slightly lopsided, something Steve didn't realize when he was still wearing the bulky outdoor clothes.

"Yeah," Steve says, crouching down to unlace his boots; fumbling because his eyes keep straying to Bucky's back. "Please."

"I don't have milk," Bucky says as he pours coffee beans into an electric grinder and presses the button. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the terrible crunching noise. "Do you take it black?"

"Yeah," Steve repeats, distracted. He kicks off his boots, lines them neatly under the coat hooks, and wanders closer, hesitantly. He's literally in Bucky's space now, in the spot Bucky carved for himself in this tiny town, and every item feels almost sacred: a basket of clean laundry in the bedroom doorway, a pair of scuffed running shoes, the distinctive lack of weapons at hand.

“Are you hungry?” Bucky asks when the grinding stops and he transfers the grounds carefully into the coffee machine’s filter.

Steve’s stomach rumbles in response, startling a laugh out of Bucky. “Um,” Steve says sheepishly. He hasn’t eaten since early hours of the morning when he pulled up to a gas station to take a leak and buy a couple of hotdogs and some protein bars.

“I’ll fix you something,” Bucky says, a smile curving the corner of his mouth. It goes directly into Steve’s chest, knocking loose something that’s been aching for Bucky’s smiles since he saw that damned newsreel in the Smithsonian.

Steve sits down at the table, watching Bucky as he moves in the kitchen with the grace of somebody who’s comfortable in their skin. He’s relaxed, at ease as he pulls a pile of tupperware containers from the fridge, digs out a clean plate and two mugs and starts piling something from the containers on the plate.

“There’s stew,” Bucky says as he works. His prosthetic is carefully covered with a sleeve and a glove, even though his right sleeve is rolled up, exposing a pale forearm and hand. “It’s hare, hope that’s all right.”

“Of course,” Steve says, then tries to make conversation. “Do you hunt with Ruth?”

“Yeah,” Bucky affirms as he puts the plate into the microwave oven and fiddles with the settings. “Ruth eats some of the stuff she catches but a lot of it ends up in the freezer. Hares and pheasants, mostly.”

Bucky pours the coffee and sets the mug down on the table, pushing it towards Steve. Steve takes it with a grateful nod, wrapping his hands around the hot porcelain. He’s suddenly exhausted, enveloped by the smell of coffee and heating food, entranced by a lock of hair escaped from Bucky’s braid, curling on Bucky’s cheekbone like a scar.

When Bucky sweeps the lock back behind his ear to get it out of his eyes, Steve almost moves to stop him, hand twitching around the mug. He’s fascinated by Bucky’s hair, the length of it; how natural the braided-back style looks on him. The long hair must be a little impractical compared to the short cut Bucky used to have, but then again that might be exactly the reason why Bucky’s let it grow - distancing this new Bucky from the old one.

Once the microwave beeps and Bucky leans down to take the plate out, the curl slips loose again, losing the battle against gravity. Steve wants to wrap it around his finger just to see if it’s as soft as it looks.

It feels surreal, sitting in Bucky’s kitchen, making polite, awkward small talk. They’re talking to each other like they’re acquaintances who haven’t seen each other in a couple of months, instead of having a whole fucking lifetime’s worth of history between them. Steve looks down at his hands, presses them more firmly against the mug until his palms are scalding hot, grounding. He bites his lip, thinking back to the scenarios he bounced in Sam’s kitchen in the middle of the night, unable to sleep.

Bucky puts the plate on the table, turning to hunt for a fork. Steve stares at the food: it’s simple, stew and mashed potatoes smelling richly of herbs and garlic, and his heart lurches painfully, stuttering. Because he’s-- fuck, he’s eaten this before, camped in an abandoned farmhouse in Austria when Dugan had caught a hare with his snare. Bucky had gone scouring the cellar and had come back with a bottle of red wine and his arms full of parsnips and carrots and cloves of late garlic. Steve remembers vividly how the kitchen had smelled: rosemary and thyme and garlic, something spicy hidden underneath. Gabe and Dugan had been out on guard and Monty and Dernier were playing cards with Morita, arguing about the rules like a group of kids.

And Steve himself, perched on a stool at the head of the table, ostensibly looking at his maps but instead watching Bucky cook. The sleeves of Bucky’s shirt had been rolled up and there was a stubborn lock of dark hair on his forehead, his cheeks flushed with the stove’s warmth, and Steve had ached for him with his whole body.

Steve’s throat feels suddenly tight, like his air supply has been cut off, and he doesn’t recognize the pressure behind his eyes until he’s crying, a sob wrenching out of his chest, his shoulders drawn tight, scrabbling to get a grip on himself. Because that night, Bucky - sleepy, warmed by mulled wine, some of the old spark momentarily back in his eyes - hadn’t scooted away from Steve’s tentative hand on his hip. Instead, he’d turned sweetly into the touch; had let Steve curl around him like the war had never come between them.

Bucky whips around in alarm and Steve lets go of the mug, tries to hide his face with his hands, wipe off the tell-tale tears. But they keep coming, hot and helpless, no matter how he scrubs, and then Bucky’s saying, “Hey, Steve, hey,” in a frantic tone, shoving the table back, and suddenly he’s on Steve’s lap, his arms like a vice around Steve’s shoulders.

Steve chokes out a sob, and then he’s clutching Bucky hard, his whole body shaking with the weeping. Bucky’s gripping him with his metal arm, his cool human hand sliding into Steve’s hair and pulling him closer, tucking him under his chin, and Steve can’t fucking _stop crying_ , hanging onto Bucky like a drowning man.

“It’s okay,” Bucky says into Steve’s hair, but his voice is cracked with emotion and he’s squeezing Steve like a lifebuoy, like if they just hold on tight enough they’ll both believe that it’s real. “Steve, it’s okay, it’s okay, we’re fine, I promise, you’re all right.”

He smells like shampoo and stale sweat, his pulse beating steadily under his skin where Steve’s face is pressed against his neck, dampening his braid. His weight on Steve’s thighs and the hard planes of his torso are familiar, and having him there - close and solid and yielding into touch - fills the crudely carved, gaping hole under Steve’s ribcage.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says between strangled sobs, trembling like a leaf, probably holding on too tight and getting snot on Bucky’s shirt. “I’m sorry, Buck, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t,” Bucky says and rakes his hand through Steve’s hair, hunched protectively over him, legs hooked behind the back of the chair to seal them together. “I’m-- I should’ve--” He never manages to finish the sentence, but his breath hitches, shaky and fluttering, and he clutches Steve incrementally harder. Steve feels Bucky’s muscles move under his hands, splayed on Bucky’s back, feels Bucky shifting on his lap with his fingertips and forearms, with his chest and stomach, with every inch of his being. It’s like his blood, his bones, every vein and sinew is reaching out too, wishing to be Bucky’s.

Steve tries to follow Bucky’s heartbeat, inhale and exhale, but the tears don’t stop coming. His head is aching, a dull throb behind his eyes, and he’s exhausted, his strings cut as he slumps further into Bucky’s arms. He’s heavy like a stone, weighed down by all the years he’s had to live alone, the vicious, sharp-edged loss of everybody he’s ever loved.

When Steve finally starts to calm down, tired and emptied out, Bucky somehow gets his feet under him again and pulls them both up from the chair. “Come on,” he whispers, carding his hand through Steve’s hair again, tugs a little to get Steve to look up. “You need rest.”

Bucky’s expression is soft and melancholy, the grey in his eyes watered down, and Steve averts his gaze, ashamed and overly conscious of his red eyes and stuffy nose. But Bucky leans in and presses his cheek against Steve’s, like he’s trying to feel the bristle of Steve’s tear-stained beard against his smooth-shaven skin. “Come on, Steve,” he says again. “Please.”

Steve exhales, swallows, his hands sliding slowly down Bucky’s back to his waist and halting there, fingers brushing the sliver of bare skin between Bucky’s sweats and the ridden-up shirt. Bucky shivers and steps back almost reluctantly, but reaches out to take Steve’s hand, pulling him towards the bedroom. Steve stumbles after him, rubbing his eyes and nose with his sleeve, trying to look less like he just broke the fuck down over a plate of stew.

Bucky gives him a tissue, and as soon as Steve’s blown his nose they crawl in bed on top of the faded floral covers, Bucky tucking himself against Steve’s back like a warm, breathing shield. Steve’s tired and docile, so worn out by his sudden outburst and the overwhelming tumble of feelings that he falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He wakes up a couple of times during the day, groggy and confused, but always falls back to sleep almost immediately. Bucky’s not pressed up against him anymore, but he’s never far: washing dishes in the kitchen, clicking away on his laptop at the foot of the bed, or leaning on the headboard and reading a thick paperback, his hand a warm point of contact on Steve’s shoulder. At some point Steve opens his eyes to find his duffel bag on the bedroom floor with a hastily scrawled note that just says, _Had to go help Bill, make yourself at home._ He’s hungry, but his head is still aching and the exhaustion hasn’t yet left his bones, so Steve obeys the note: he takes off his jeans and sweatshirt, pulls back the covers, and goes back to bed.

The next time Steve startles awake it’s already dark, but the sky has cleared and a bright half-moon is shining through the windows, bathing the bedroom in its silvery glow. Bucky's standing at the foot of the bed, wearing a dark t-shirt and a pair of long underwear, his hair loose and heavy on one shoulder, like he’s changed for bed. The moonlight reflects from his left arm, and he’s looking down at Steve, expression inscrutable.

“Buck?” Steve asks, his voice thick with quickly dissolving sleep.

“Why did you come here?” Bucky asks, barely a whisper. He looks almost ethereal in the cold light.

“Because I love you,” Steve says; the only real answer there has ever been. A heavy, pregnant silence settles on them, and Bucky bites his lip, crosses his arms over his stomach like he’s hugging himself. Steve can’t bring himself to break the moment, transfixed by the way the light hits the dips and planes of Bucky’s face, his hair. Steve wishes he could draw him.

“But it’s been so long,” Bucky whispers finally, eyes downcast, talking more to his feet than to Steve.

“Not for me,” Steve says, raw and honest. “Barely three years. I grieved for you, but I never stopped loving you.”

“You loved Carter,” Bucky says, but it’s a question, not an accusation.

“I did,” Steve agrees, and there’s something sharp and painful in his throat when he continues, trying to swallow it down. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t love you too. I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

Bucky shakes his head, opens his mouth as if to say something but nothing comes out. He closes his mouth, swallows, twisting the hem of his shirt in his hands.

“You’re the love of my life, Buck,” Steve says, soft and low, his heart creaking in his chest like a window left ajar. “But I don’t expect anything from you. I just needed to know that you’re all right. I can go back tomorrow if you want me to.”

Bucky inhales sharply, bites his lip again. Then he rounds the bed, silent on the creaky floorboards, lifts the edge of the duvet and slips under it, pressing into Steve’s arms. He’s warm under Steve’s touch, hunched into himself like he doesn’t know what to do with his body, but his toes are chilly and achingly familiar as they slide between Steve’s bare legs.

“Don’t,” Bucky says, muffled by Steve’s t-shirt, and his voice breaks. “Don’t go.”

He’s shivering, and Steve grips him tighter, wishing Bucky would crawl under his t-shirt and stay there, keep warm. The gesture betrays Bucky in the ways his mouth couldn’t, and Steve-- Steve gets it, wonders how long it’s been since somebody last held Bucky like this, touched him with reverence and tenderness. He gathers Bucky in as tight as he can, buries his nose in the cascade of tangled hair.

“I won’t,” he says, and Bucky makes a sound like a wounded animal. It’s only when he registers a damp patch on his neck that Steve realizes Bucky’s crying, silent and trembling, his hands fisting the back of Steve’s shirt.

The clock on the wall ticks on, steady and loud in the quiet room. Steve doesn’t tell him that it’s all right, but he holds on, his hand placed protectively over the topmost notch in Bucky’s spine, wrapped around Bucky like armor, a safe house.

The next time he opens his eyes, his face is full of dark hair and Bucky’s curled up under his arm, blinking up at him with sleep-crusted eyes.

“Hey,” Steve says, stupidly. He has no idea what time it is, but grey morning light is spilling into the room, making Bucky look soft around the edges. He feels more rested than he has in ages, probably since before Bucky left for the war and Steve said a cheerful _fuck you_ to any rational thought.

“Hey,” Bucky replies, but doesn’t make a move to leave. The bed is barely wide enough for two grown men, and this close Steve can track every crease and freckle on Bucky’s face, the tiny scar on his forehead from when Becca accidentally hit him with scissors as a kid. “Do you remember that pulp magazine my Pa left lying around once? We were so scared that we couldn’t sleep?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, blinking. _“Terror Tales.”_

“That’s the one,” Bucky says, as if to himself, cracking a smile. “Then you went home and were so exhausted that you slept like thirteen hours straight, and your Ma almost sent for the doc because you wouldn’t fucking stop _sleeping.”_

Steve huffs a laugh. “I’d forgotten that.”

“Me too,” Bucky says. The weight of his head on Steve’s upper arm is new and something Steve’s going to cherish for a long time. “But you just slept for ages. Read _Terror Tales_ lately?”

“Hey, reanimated corpses can be really scary,” Steve replies, mock-affronted, but then Bucky snorts, causing him to break down and start chuckling. It’s a terrible joke, and a terrible thing to make fun of considering that they both could sort of be classified as reanimated bodies. Privately Steve thinks that he’d give up fucking _everything_ and die happy if he just could wake up like this again: hair in his mouth and Bucky shaking with mirth in his arms, his muffled laughter against Steve’s armpit.

When they calm down, Bucky’s eyes are soft but his smile slowly fades away. “What now?” he asks quietly.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks.

Bucky looks down at his fingers clenched in Steve’s shirt. “Well,” he says, swallowing. “You’ve seen that I’m-- all right, like you wanted.” He doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes, stays quiet for a long moment while Steve waits patiently.

“I can’t go back with you,” Bucky says then, and there’s nothing unsure in his tone. “This is my life now. I like that it’s quiet and small and uneventful - and I can’t just leave Ruth.”

Steve shifts a little onto his side so that he can put his free hand carefully on Bucky’s flank. “I don’t want you to come with me to New York,” he says, and Bucky flinches, but Steve squeezes Bucky’s hip, aiming for reassurance. “To be honest, quiet and uneventful sounds like heaven, Buck. I’d love to stay, if you’ll have me.”

Bucky looks up at that, mouth parted in surprise. Then he says, like he’s testing the waters, “So far no aliens or robots around here. Just a fuckton of snow.”

“I’ll take a shitload of snow over aliens any day,” Steve replies. “Your face is dumb as hell, but at least it’s not as ugly.” He aims for a teasing, light hearted tone, but the fondness pushes through, making it sound more like another love confession.

Bucky touches Steve’s jaw with hesitating fingertips, eyes skirting, searching for any traces of dishonesty. “Didn’t think I’d see the day you insult your own cousins,” he says then, completely straight-faced.

The heaviness of the moment is spoiled, and Steve snorts, trying to pinch him. Bucky manages to keep a serious face, until Steve’s stomach growls, loud and demanding, and it makes Bucky grin, sudden and bright and happy.

“Let’s go have breakfast,” he says. “I know just the place.” He wriggles out of Steve’s hold and sits up, his hair absolutely everywhere.

Steve sits up too. Bucky’s rumpled and sleep-warm, the grey of his eyes tinted towards green like a goshawk’s wing, and Steve’s drawn to him, enthralled by the priviledge of getting to witness him like this. Before he can stop himself, he makes an aborted hand movement towards Bucky, not sure what he’s even trying to do. “Can I--”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Bucky’s already leaning over and slotting his mouth over Steve’s. The kiss is soft and chaste, tentative, and over almost as abruptly as it started: Bucky pulls back, mumbles, “Get dressed, I need to brush my hair,” and vanishes into the bathroom while Steve’s still trying to gather his thoughts.

Steve touches his lips with his fingers, astonished, before breaking into a smile, feeling giddy and dazed, his heart in overdrive. When he catches a glimpse of the bathroom through the doorway, Bucky’s standing in front of the mirror, looking down at his mismatched hands, and smiling like he doesn’t know how to stop.

It will take time; it will take dozens of short, chapped kisses to work up the courage to ask for something more; it will take more than helpless confessions in the dark to navigate this new, vulnerable dynamic. But Steve finally, _finally_ has Bucky back and will take everything that comes with it: the flat above somebody else’s garage, the parental figures ready to stand on his side in a heartbeat; and the curious, yellow-eyed hawk that clearly means more to Bucky than Steve can ever guess.

He will take it, and they will make it work, one way or another. As he gets out of the bed and hunts for his bag and a set of fresh clothes, Steve starts whistling, first under his breath and then louder, elevated and light as air.

**

In the bathroom Bucky closes his eyes, his heart tripping over itself in his chest, and starts brushing his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands are for other human hands to hold.  
> \- Helen Macdonald: H is for Hawk

**Author's Note:**

> Art crossposted to Tumblr in alby's [From What Seemed Like A Ruin](http://artgroves.tumblr.com/tagged/from-what-seemed-like-a-ruin%0A) tag.
> 
>  
> 
> Roh on Tumblr


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